Educating Risa

After picking Jim up at the Greyhound bus station and sleeping in Swift Current Thursday night, we headed to the T Rex Discovery Centre in Eastend, SK first thing Friday morning. The boys were uber-excited! I am including lots of pics from the Centre (at the end of this post) as I am sure at least a few of you reading this blog are wondering if the trip off the Trans-Canada (Eastend is about 1 hour south) is worth it. Eastend is a small town of just over 1500 people, and I was wondering what the T rex Discovery Centre would be like. Small, sure—but how small? Are we talking a couple T rex teeth fossils and an old farm tractor in the museum? I am happy to say that the Centre exceeded our expectations—and hopes—in every way. I highly recommend it!

The Centre itself is fair-sized building built into the side of a hill above the Frenchman River valley. It is clean, bright, very well laid out and professional. There are detailed displays on a wide variety of prehistoric life forms—it is not just about ‘Scotty’, the T rex found in the Frenchman river valley nearby. (In fact, its not even primarily about Scotty). Many of the displays are hands-on and kid-friendly, and they have other activities for kids you can add on for low cost. Our boys did a fossil dig (cost: $3).

When you arrive at the Centre, you first head to the theatre to see a short film about the discovery of Scotty the T rex. You are then given a guided tour of the museum displays, with a very knowledgeable guide who, in our case, was happy to customize the tour to the boys interests and questions. Even I Jim and I learned new things (more on this in a bit). We will be back! Anyways, let’s get on to some pics, shall we?

The T Rex centre has two parts: the tourism side, which we enjoyed, and the science / palaeontology side of things. I noticed this on a dusty truck in the parking lot:

There were scientists working in the lab that we were able to watch, and they had some of the prepared fossils on display (like Scotty’s actual bones):

 

The town of Eastend is in a very scenic spot, among an ‘oasis of trees’ in the river valley, surrounded by rolling grassland / scrubland hills and badlands. The drive off the Trans-Canada (from Maple Creek) goes through the eastern edge of the Cypress Hills as well—not your flat ‘boring’ prairie in the SE corner of Saskatchewan! (The Cypress Hills are a heavily treed geological oddity rising above the prairie—in fact they are the highest point of land between the Rocky Mountains and Labrador on the east coast of Canada. They also have unique flora and fauna as they were not covered by glaciers in the last ice age).

Heading into the Centre, which is built into the side of the hill in an aesthetically pleasing manner:

Part of the guided tour:

There are lots of hands-on displays—very kid-friendly:

We brought a picnic lunch, and enjoyed the scenery (reflected in the pic on the mirrored glass). There are bathrooms, a water fountain, and a superb gift shop, but no cafeteria on site. (There are several places to get food in town, a 2 minutes drive down the hill.)

Daegan and Gareth spent some time after lunch scouting for fossils and catching bugs. You get more of a sense of the scenery in these pics. A really lovely spot:

 

After lunch the boys did a fossil dig activity (Gareth got a bit of help from Jim at the end). I can so see the future here! Daegan found a parasaurolophus skull (model), and Gareth a brachiosaurus:

Before heading on our way, we went back through the displays one more time—the boys and their uber-excitement had settled by then, so Jim and I were able to read and learn rather than dash from one thing to the next with the boys. One of the most interesting things I learned was about how little we know about T rex. Given how popular this dinosaur is, I thought we knew lots and had founds tons of T rex fossils—but not so. Just over 2 dozen T rex fossils have ever been found (world-wide), and the vast majority of these have only small fragments of the skeleton (less than 10% complete). Sue, now at Chicago’s Field Museum, is the best-known among these.  But we know nothing of T rex eggs or young, nor their growth rate or family habits.

Here’s a bunch more pics from the display area. The one of Gareth pointing to the coprolite (fossilized poop) and Daegan wrinkling his nose in the background makes me laugh. Hope this gives you a good idea of what to expect  if you make the trip to Eastend.