The town built a museum and kept him there. The T. rex Discovery Centre, operated by the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, opened in 2001 and is built right into the hills of the Frenchman River Valley — a striking 16,000-square-foot facility at the end of a road called, naturally, #1 T. rex Drive.
Inside, you can stand face to face with Scotty’s skeleton in the CN Gallery. The Cretaceous and Cenozoic galleries display marine reptiles, prehistoric mammals, and fossils spanning hundreds of millions of years. The Paleo Lab Experience lets families dig for microfossils at interactive stations. The Discovery Theatre screens a documentary about Scotty’s discovery and the acclaimed film T.REX daily.
Admission is by donation. Open daily from Victoria Day weekend through Labour Day, 10 AM to 6 PM. Hiking trails around the centre let you explore the valley landscape that holds so many of these secrets.
Annual highlights include Dino Days Weekend in July and Scotty’s Unearthed Day on August 16 — the anniversary of Gebhardt’s discovery.
Photos: Google Maps, James C; Muhsatteb – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81105605
