by Duane Radford

Created on: April 22, 2008   Last Updated: April 27, 2009

Badlands & Dinosaurs: Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada

Dinosaur Park in Alberta, Canada has been called one of the most spectacular outdoor classrooms in the world, having a rich fossil history, outstanding vistas, abundant and exotic prairie wildlife.

The park attracts visitors from around the world. And, it has the most dinosaur fossils in one spot on earth! Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979, it has the largest protected area of badlands in Canada, unusual plants and animals and world renowned fossils from the late Cretaceous Period. It is also home to the Field Station of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology at nearby Drumheller.

As you leave your vehicle and walk towards a viewpoint at the park entrance, a fragrant smell of sage hits you, wafting in the ever-present prairie wind - a cooling wind.

Badlands stretch eastward towards the Saskatchewan border, and northwest towards Drumheller, the dinosaur capital of the world. They have a mysterious element; these moon-like land forms gouged from the prairie landscape some 75 million years ago by ancient winds, water and ice have changed little over time. They are desolate, eerie, foreboding. No wonder they are called "badlands" - the name is fitting. They beckon the adventurer, the sightseer; the curious traveler. What forces of nature could have created them? What secrets of ancient times lie hidden among them?

The badlands come upon you unexpectedly.

One minute you're driving across Alberta's sweeping prairie, amid farms and ranches. Suddenly, badlands unfold in front of you as far as the eye can see, in the broad valley of the Red Deer River, creating a startling contrast.

The badlands are spectacular in many respects - not just because of their sheer expanse, but also because of their strange shapes and sizes, their unusual coloration. They captivate your imagination. The hoodoos, a generally-barren landscape, seemingly endless gullies and crevices associated with the badlands, make them all the more surreal. They flank the lush riparian vegetation along the Red Deer River with it sagebrush flats, copses of willows and ragged cottonwood forest.

Besides its spectacular scenery, Dinosaur Park contains some of the most important fossil discoveries ever made from the "Age of the Reptiles" when some 35 different species of dinosaurs roamed throughout what is now southern Alberta.

The park is located about 50 km north of Brooks, an oasis in the arid prairies, a short distance off the

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