Dinosaur museum in Alberta is named one of the best in the world

A dinosaur museum in Alberta has been named one of the top museum openings in the prestigious 2016 Conde Nast Traveller list after it welcomed its first guests on holiday in Canada in 2015.

The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, located in Alberta, scored an impressive seventh place in Conde Nast’s round up of the 10 biggest museum openings of the year – sitting alongside international attractions such as the New Tate Modern in London and the fairy tale centre Grimm World in Germany.

The museum’s collections include fossils, murals and specimens to bring Alberta’s prehistoric creatures to life and demonstrate how the experts discover and reconstruct dinosaur models using modern technology. Through the museum’s innovative exhibits you’ll see how artefacts and samples help to piece together the age of the dinosaurs!

Being the only Canadian museum to make the list and with its quirky, award-winning design, the dinosaur museum is sure to attract visitors travelling to the region which is known for its dinosaur discoveries as well as the world-famous Calgary Stampede.

As Conde Nast Traveller says: “This new museum complex may not be in a major urban area, but its location was strategically chosen: it’s the spot where the horned dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai once thrived.”

The futuristic-looking facility, designed by Toronto-based Teeple Architects, looks to the past as it showcases findings from the proximate Pipestone Creek bonebed, one of Earth’s largest accumulations of dinosaur bones. The intricacies of the palaeontology methods involved are detailed through its interactive ‘Fossil Lab’.

There’s certainly plenty to do at the dinosaur museum in Alberta, but if you want to find out more about the area’s former reptilian residents, why not make the most of the convenient car hire in Canada and explore the following primal spots?

Dinosaur Provincial Park

Located at the centre of Alberta’s Badlands in the land of the dinosaurs, the UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to some of the most significant dinosaur fossil finds. Dinosaur Provincial Park could well have known some 35 species of dinosaur, some of which date back as far as 75 million years. Today, the park’s fantastic landscapes offer a Jurassic experience just a few miles from the modern comfort of the city of Brooks. If you’re visiting the province’s exciting capital Calgary just a short distance away, why not take advantage of a convenient fly drive holiday to explore Alberta’s classic landscapes? At Dinosaur Provincial Park you can hike, camp and maybe even stumble across a dinosaur dig in this breathtaking part of the world. Be sure to check out the Cretaceous Café for a cooling refreshment during the summer months.

Prehistoric Park at the Calgary Zoo

The age of the dinosaur may be a thing of the past, but you can still get up close to the next best thing at Calgary Zoo’s Prehistoric Park! The city zoo’s dedicated dino section is well worth a visit for any would-be palaeontologist, offering the chance to see the wildlife and primal creatures as they would have been back when they ruled Alberta!

Back for 2016, the Dinosaurs Alive animatronic trail features life-sized moving models of some of the better-known reptiles from this time, including Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex of course!

Image Credit: Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum (dinomuseum.ca), Jonebabana (flickr.com), Tyson2k (wikipedia.org)