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Dinosaur Provincial
Park |
Alberta:
July 1997
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I must admit to approaching Dinosaur Provincial Park with trepidation. After the gibbering crowds of the dinosaur museum at Tyrrel, I feared the same thing here. I was very, very surprised and pleased. The campground is in a sort of oasis in the badlands, which act as a spectacular screen on which morning and evening sunlight projects amazing lightshows. Mule deer wander between the campers. We took part in a couple of organized activities here. One evening we took to our bikes and, wobbling along the sandy roads, followed a charming and charismatic young lady into the badlands, into areas that visitors are not normally permitted access. We watched wonderful views expand and contract. We stood in caves. We touched huge vertebrae that were weathering out of the rock. We found fossil leaves. Our guide told us stories the local First Nation cherish. We saw a prairie rattlesnake. Next day we went on a fossil safari, again in the off-limits part of the park. We were looking not for huge bones but for micro-fossils — tiny teeth, the bones of small mammals, the skin of crocodiles, the shells of turtles. We of course weren't allowed to keep the fossils we located, but the fun was in the searching, not the acquisition. I duly found lots of tiny bone fragments, and a nice piece of crocodile skin. The sun blazed down. I was in seventh heaven... The following evening L. and I walked in the area of the badlands in which the public are allowed. Armed with our experiences of the two excursions we'd made, I found small bones and, best of all, the tooth of a duck-billed dinosaur. The rule is still to touch them and leave them, and so I did, as the setting sun made the hillocks glow like molten gold around me. I would highly recommend a visit here. CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE LARGER VERSION
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