Drumheller, Alberta

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The Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology is probably one of the most outstanding informational museums we have had the privilege of visiting. We highly recommend planning a special trip to view all the incredible exhibits of evolution which span over millions of years.   

Fun fact - It’s actually the only museum in Canada specifically dedicated to the study of ancient life featuring one of the largest dinosaur displays in the world! 

The Museum exhibits offer approximately 800 fossils to view as well as numerous options for hands-on & interactive learning for people of all ages. The layout of the exhibits are organized by the various geologic eras to learn about the evolution of our planet providing outstanding detail for each era. 

Some of the exhibits include: 

• “Terrestrial Palaeozoic” dating back 542-252 million years describing how plants and animals moved from the seas to inhabit dry land. 

• “Cretaceous Alberta” featuring a diorama of the Albertosaurus and its history. 

• The newly added “Learning Lounge” for knowledge about the Albertosaurus with the option to participate in interactive & hands-on learning. 

•  A “Cretaceous Garden” with living relative vegetation which grew in the Alberta region 70 million years ago.

• The “Preparation Lab” where people can view fossils being prepared for research and display. 

• “Cenozoic Era Gallery” describing the history of the “Age of the Mammals.” 

• “Dinosaur Hall” displaying one of the worlds largest displays of dinosaur remains including a Triceratops, the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex, the herbivorous Camarasaurus, plus many more.  

The Royal Tyrell Museum is open year-round to host the 430,000 visitors it sees every year and have provided the hours of operation below for easy reference.
 

An astronomical amount of work & dedication has gone into creating this museum. We want to thank everyone who was & still is involved in providing the avenue to learn about the amazing eras of our planet's history. 

Did anyone know the Atlas Coal Mine is actually a National Historic site? Yep, it is Canada’s last standing & complete wooden coal tipple that is considered to be the most historic in our nations history. 

The Atlas mines operated from 1911-1984.  The still standing No.3 tipple was built in 1936 for loading and sorting the coal coming out of the mine until its eventual shut down in 1979. 

The Atlas No.3 building also provides options for tours to learn about the Atlas Coal Mine & mining industry before permanently closing its operations.

Tour Options 

Train Ride:

The locomotive for the train ride is 90 years old and takes guests around the surface areas of the mine site providing incredible historic stories with some really neat fun facts about the mine.

• 25 mins in length – Little to no walking and considered green/easy  
• $8.55 per person (requires a site admission ticket & does not include the underground mine tour)
• Children under 5 are free yet still need to have a ticket booked due to the limited seating on the train.

Processing Plant Tour: 

This tour offers the option to explore the last wooden tipple in Canada providing information on how the coal was stored, sorted and shipped all across Canada. Just a heads up, there is a gradual ascent of 125 feet which includes some stairs.

• 45 mins in length – The walking difficulty is considered blue/medium 
• $16.25 per person (requires a site admission ticket & does not include the underground mine tour)
• Children under 5 are free yet do still need to have a ticket booked for guest numbers for the guide 

And last but definitely not the least…..

Mine Portal Hike: 

This tour offers an actual look inside the underground mine and the upper site areas. Having the ability to view the Drumheller valley up there, walking through the mine experiencing mining life first hand, and the other unique spaces is incredible to say the least.

• 75 mins in length –The walking difficulty is considered "black/hard"  
• $18.45 per person (requires a site admission ticket & includes hard hats & lamps for safety) 
• Children under the age of 6 are unfortunately not able to make this journey due to the difficulty of the terrain.   

***Please note *** 

Sturdy fully enclosed shoes are required due to the nature of the landscapes for safety purposes. 

The Drumheller hoodoos are natural rock formations that were created by erosion from wind and water dating back millions of years. These stunning and unique rock formations are up to 20 feet tall and have a mushroom like structure because the stem like bases are made of softer clay/sand. The top “cap” is harder and less easily eroded stone creating the beautiful natural structures we see today. 

Due to the softer compounds in the base, the elements cause the bases of the hoodoos to erode at roughly 1 cm per year and is known to be a faster erosion rate than most geological formations around the world. Hence why we believe they are something worth seeing before they are erased from time. 

Fun Fact: Legend has it that the local Blackfoot & Cree believe the Hoodoos are petrified giants who come alive at night to protect the land by throwing stones at any trespassers. 

The Hoodoos are free to visit and offer a nice viewing platform for people of all ages with interpretive signage to read along the way.

• Drumheller Hoodoo Loop – 0.2km loop with 5m of elevation gain and considered "easy /green" difficulty

There are also other walking trails in the area offering different view points while visiting these petrified giants. We chose to leave them out so each person visiting can try and find them for themselves. All part of the adventure, right? 

There are two coulees flowing into Kneehill Creek that helped form a very unique and beautiful landscape in the shape of a horseshoe, hence the name “Horseshoe Canyon.” The arms of the horseshoe shape are roughly 5km long extending from Kneehill Creek to the local Highway 9 and provide beautiful hiking trails inside the canyon.  

Being inside the canyon feels like walking on another planet due to the layers of the strata & sediment. Both hikes should be roughly 2-3 hrs in length and highly recommend taking the time to complete both options. There are also some really amazing locations at the top of the canyon with many different view points along the trails for photography. 

Heads up – There is a parking fee of $2.00 between mid May and the end of September. There are usually Kneehill County staff onsite from 11:00-5:00 pm to answer any questions people may have, to accept parking payments, plus provide other site seeing locations in the Kneehill County area. Thanks for all of their hard work! 

Fun Facts: 

• There used to be two former mining communities called Dunphy and Gatine. There was not a lot of information on either mining site yet did come across the Dunphy Cemetery dating back to 1915 and is worth taking a look at.  

• In 2020, a boy by the name of Nathan Hrushkin and his father discovered a dinosaur fossil dating back 69 million years. This discovery helped fill in some gaps during the Cretaceous era because the local palaeontologists were unsure on which dinosaurs roamed around the Horseshoe Canyon area. 

• The dinosaur fossil turned out to be a young “Hadrosauridae” which is also known as the “Duck-Billed” dinosaur. 

• If anyone feels enticed to read up on Nathan's discovery, click on the following link from CBC Calgary for the article & video coverage.

Hiking trails in Horseshoe Canyon: 

At the base of the canyon’s staircase, the main trails branch off also offering many unmarked single-track trails from people exploring inside the canyon.

It is fairly easy to get sidetracked off the main trails so we recommend following the map/navigator for easy reference getting back on the main trail. 

Dogs on a leash and children are more than welcome on these trails. 

• Horseshoe Canyon Trail (Loop) – 4.3km with 120m of elevation gain and considered to be "moderate/blue" difficulty.

• Horseshoe Canyon East Loop – 2.9km with 71m of elevation gain and considered to be “moderate/blue” difficulty. 

**Recommendation** 

Bring hats, sunscreen, water, closed toe shoes and maybe some snacks in the dead heat of the summer because there is little to no shade once you are in the Canyon. It can get pretty hot under the sun on the prairies and want to make sure everyone comes prepared. 

We consider Drumheller, Alberta to be one of the most unique and interesting places in world and felt we needed to recommend this "other worldly" destination to enjoy!

Situated off the Red Deer River in the Badlands of Alberta, Drumheller is referred to as “the Dinosaur Valley” because of how densely populated the area is of fossils dating back millions of years. 

The town of Drumheller was named after a man by the name of Samuel Drumheller who was born in Walla Walla, Washington in 1864. After graduating from college, young Samuel started his career working his way up from the bottom learning everything he possibly could about the livestock and wheat growing industry.  With all the knowledge he accumulated from his education & father, Samuel started buying up land for his own empire bringing him to Alberta in 1909. The plains of Alberta looked like a perfect location for a cattle business & decided to buy just under 6,000 acres of land north east from Fort Calgary.  

As the years went on, Samuel ended up changing his mind about the future of his land because he had a remarkable vision for a potential townsite along the Red Deer River considering it to be an ideal spot to develop a new town. Even though the Railroad was over 100km’s away at that time, he ended up allocating just under 5 sections of land which would eventually become the Village of Drumheller.  

Samuel's dream became reality when these allocated sections of land started being surveyed in 1911. He also incorporated a hand-picked geology team during this time to start prospecting for coal deposits in the Badlands foothills. Luckily enough, the area had a rich amount of coal and they located one of Alberta's largest deposits that very same year. 

The iconic Drumheller Railroad Station was built in 1912 helping provide easy access for future pioneers looking to settle in the Badlands. This new railway route also provided access to export coal all over the country from the newly established and flourishing Atlas Coal Mine. The vast supply of coal coming out of Drumheller provided power for steam engines, fuel to heat buildings along with generating electricity across Canada.  

In the late Spring of 1913, Drumheller was officially incorporated as a village and quickly boomed to a population of 312 people within three years. This population increase fostered the once known village of Drumheller into an official town in March of 1916. As the years went on, more and more settlers found themselves making their way to the Alberta prairies for work in the coal mining operations, agriculture, retail store fronts, trade, palaeontology research and many other business ventures. Drumheller became a city in April of 1930 and continued to steadily grow until the mid 1940's after World War II ended.  

When World War II started in the fall of 1939, the Atlas Coal Mine produced a significant amount of coal to help the Allies win the war by fueling the military operations. Once the war ended in September of 1945, coal ended up losing the majority of its value causing the booming town of Drumheller to become stagnate for new settlers. 

On January 1st of 1998, Drumheller came to an agreement with the Municipal District of Badlands No.7 to revert back to a town status which is still the beautiful quaint little community we see today.