Travelling with Kids

Old West Meets Prehistoric West in Alberta’s Badlands

By Valerie Howes

On a drop-top tour of dinosaur country, we discover the pleasures of paleontology.

My 13-year-old son Sean and I are on a dinosaur hunt in Alberta’s Badlands, where T. Rex remains litter provincial parks and prehistoric mollusks are frozen in rocky cliff faces. Kid heaven, sure, but what’s in it for Mom? Turns out the trick to adding parent appeal is to strike the right balance between Old West and really Old West.

After arriving in Calgary, we set off with Ron Maltin of Top-Down Tours on a custom road trip in a gleaming white Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible – a.k.a. Auntie Pearl. Frankly, I prefer to let someone else handle the driving so I can sit back with the wind in my hair. As we motor toward Drumheller, we take a detour into a ghost town called Rowley, where we meet a third of the population: two guys taking a break from the fields. Community president Chris Foesier unlocks Sam’s Saloon for us – a special honor – for beer and homemade pizza. Not an inch of wall or ceiling remains unadorned. Several moose heads are decked out in cowboy hats, and a cigarette dangles lazily from the lips of one for a uniquely Albertan take on the Camel mascot. Kitsch is king, and both Sean and I are enthralled.

The kitsch continues as we arrive at Drumheller, a.k.a. Dinoville – a long, skinny Badlands town that looks like a cowboy movie set. As we cruise the main drag, Ron fills me in on the history, culture and latest gossip from his hometown. After checking out the various dino-themed esoterica along the way, Sean and I retire for a cozy night beneath homey stitched quilts at Newcastle Country Inn. Next morning, as Sean climbs The World’s Tallest Dinosaur, a T. Rex in downtown Drumheller, I caffeinate across the street and sample possibly the world’s most delicious fresh-baked strawberry and rhubarb tart at tea-shop-cum-craft-store The Whistling Kettle.

Just north of Drumheller, we arrive at the palace of paleontology: The Royal Tyrrell Museum. The Dinosaur Hall – featuring dozens of skeletons illuminated in the relative darkness and orchestral music swelling for added atmospherics  – is where we linger longest. Later, I nip off to the temporary Darwin exhibit and discover journal entries and wildlife sketches by the father of evolutionary theory, while Sean notes the similarities between a prehistoric sea creature in the Devonian reef display and Bart Simpson’s head.

Now totally fascinated with all things old and scary, we take an interlude in Wayne (former population: 3,000; current: 40). Ron knows the spot well: He plays Frisbee golf here among the hoodoos (funky spires of sedimentary rock with hard rock balanced on top) and is on first-name terms with the locals. At the nearby Rosedeer Hotel, Freddy Dayman – whose family has owned the seven-room property and its Last Chance Saloon for over 60 years – offers 12-oz steaks, baked potatoes, garlic bread and beans for guests to cook to their liking on the barbecue in summer. Adding to the frontier feel, local microbrews are served in Mason jars.

Last stop: Dinosaur Provincial Park, and our visit begins with Sean’s delight at the sign warning of rattlesnakes, scorpions and black widow spiders in the area. Our guide at the shiny new LEED-certified eco-visitor center reassures us there have been no attacks, and they move the rattlers off the trails if ever there’s a sighting. Within the center, we handle fossils and bones at the “Please Touch” point and visit a recreated pioneer paleontologists’ encampment, complete with woolen socks hanging to dry from a guy rope.

Outdoors, we hike the sprawling trail network, eyes peeled for reptiles (both live and fossilized), and check out dig sites. The sun is setting, so although the light is spectacular as it ripples across this strange landscape, wrinkled like a pug’s forehead, we only amble for a short while before making tracks for Calgary. As Ron takes the wheel again, I leaf drowsily through a guide to the geological marvels of the park, my son through his graphic novel about the pioneers – both of us equally contented.

(Valerie Howes is a Montreal-based writer and editor with a new-found interest in paleontology.)

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF TRAVEL ALBERTA