Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum facts for kids
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| Established | September 3, 2015 |
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| Location | Wembley, Alberta |
| Type | Palaeontological |
| Architect | Teeple Architects |
| Owner | County of Grande Prairie |
The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is a cool place in Wembley, Alberta, Canada, where you can learn all about dinosaurs and ancient life. It's a big building, about 3,800 square meters, built in 2015. The museum is named after a famous Canadian dinosaur expert, Philip J. Currie.
Contents
Discovering Dinosaurs
The museum is built close to a special spot called the Pipestone Creek bonebed. A bonebed is like a huge graveyard where many animal bones are found together. This bonebed is part of the Wapiti Formation, a rock layer that holds fossils from the time when dinosaurs lived, specifically from the Late Cretaceous period.
The Pipestone Creek Bonebed
In 1974, a local school teacher named Al Lakusta found this amazing bonebed. He discovered bones belonging to a horned dinosaur called Pachyrhinosaurus. This dinosaur was later named Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai in his honor.
The Pipestone Creek bonebed is one of the richest fossil sites in the world. It has thousands of fossils! Because so many ancient creatures were found there, the area became known as The River of Death. Besides Pachyrhinosaurus, other dinosaur fossils found here include duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs, fierce tyrannosaurs, armored nodosaurs, long-necked sea reptiles called plesiosaurs, and flying reptiles known as pterosaurs.
Building the Museum
In 2010, a group of people formed a non-profit organization called The River of Death and Discovery Dinosaur Museum Society. Their goal was to open a museum in the area to show off all the amazing fossils found nearby.
A New Name and Big Plans
In 2011, the society changed the museum's name to the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum. This was to honor Dr. Philip J. Currie, a well-known Canadian paleontologist, and because the original name was a bit scary.
Building the museum cost about $26 million. A lot of the money came from local governments, like the County of Grande Prairie and the City of Grande Prairie, as well as the Government of Alberta and private donations. The building was designed by Teeple Architects from Toronto. It's a special building that is "LEED certified," which means it's designed to be very environmentally friendly.
Celebrity Support and Grand Opening
There were some delays in building the museum and raising money. Canadian actor and dinosaur fan Dan Aykroyd heard about it and decided to help! He organized a special two-day event at Pipestone Creek Park. This included a celebrity fossil dig, a ball, and an auction to raise money. Many famous people attended, like Aykroyd's wife, actress Donna Dixon, and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels.
With more funding, the museum officially opened on September 3, 2015. A special ceremony and "amber ball" were held later that month, with Dan Aykroyd, Donna Dixon, Dr. Philip J. Currie, and Dr. Eva Kopplehus attending. To thank Dan Aykroyd for his help, the museum's theater was named the Aykroyd Family Theatre. This theater is special because it's the only one in Canada allowed to show National Geographic films.
What You Can See
The museum has many incredible fossils on display, including the Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai found right there in the Pipestone Creek bonebed.
The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is part of a bigger plan to make the town of Wembley a popular spot for people who love dinosaurs. Many visitors also go to the Tumbler Ridge Museum in British Columbia. In its first eleven months, the museum welcomed over 100,000 visitors, which was more than double what they expected!
The museum's building itself is quite famous. In 2014, a design magazine called Azure named it one of the top ten projects to watch that year. When it opened in 2015, Conde Nast Traveler recognized it as one of the top new museum openings worldwide.
Images for kids
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Exhibits at the museum
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Albertaceratops nesmoi at the museum
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An Gorgosaurus libratus on display
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Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai and young Pachyrinosaurus on display
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Struthiomimus altus at the museum
See also
