Horseshoe Canyon (Alberta) facts for kids
Horseshoe Canyon is a really cool natural area in Alberta, Canada. It's a special type of landscape called badlands, surrounded by wide-open grassy plains known as prairie. You can find it about 17 km (11 mi) west of the town of Drumheller, right along Highway 9.
Discovering Horseshoe Canyon
Horseshoe Canyon gets its name because it's shaped like a giant horseshoe! This shape comes from two smaller valleys, called coulees, that meet up and flow into a stream called Kneehill Creek. This creek eventually joins the Red Deer River.
What Makes it Special?
The canyon has two long "arms," each about 5 kilometers (3 miles) long. They stretch from Highway 9 all the way to Kneehill Creek. This unique shape and the rocks found here are so important that they even gave their name to a specific layer of rock called the Horseshoe Canyon Formation. This rock layer helps scientists understand Earth's past.
A Dinosaur Discovery
One of the most exciting things about Horseshoe Canyon happened in 2020. A young boy named Nathan Hrushkin was exploring the canyon when he made an amazing discovery! He found a dinosaur fossil that was an incredible 69 million years old. This shows just how many ancient secrets the canyon holds!
