Calgary has a long history and love affair with all things prehistoric, with a close proximity to the rich bonebeds of the Badlands and famous paleontologists like Barnum Brown and Charles Sternberg excavating dinosaurs in 1912 in the Red Deer River valley. In those days some local citizens formed the Calgary Natural History Society (1914-27) and created a natural history museum in the basement of the old courthouse, the society sold it's collection to the City and from 1928-35 operated one of only four civically funded museums in the country in the North-West Travellers Building (a historic site built in Edwardian style at 515 1St. S.E.) which included an entire dinosaur skeleton.
John Kanerva a Finnish born artist (1883-1976) is responsible for "Dinny" the Brontosaurs above and most of the 56 dinosaur and prehistoric mammal sculptures of Calgary's Natural History Park which was located on the West side of St.Georges Island (the Zoo). John Kanerva cited the 1925 film The Lost World as his source for a life-long passion in dinosaurs.
Calgary's first Prehistoric Park opened in 1937 and the Zoo was renamed the The Calgary Zoo and Natural History Park the first such park in North America to feature life sized (or larger) models of dinosaurs. The Brontosaurus (an incorrectly classified dinosaur) "Dinny" became a beloved and famous landmark of early 20th century Calgary probably only superseded until the Calgary Tower was built in 1968. Dinny is 12m tall and 36 m long (36' tall, 108' long) and weighs 110 tonnes, made of hand formed concrete over steel and wire mesh armature with a hollow interior, local lore says a Model T and outhouse are inside...we may never know. Dinny is the only surviving sculpture from this era as they were all destroyed in the 1980's for the Eurasia exhibits and a new Prehistoric Park on the North side of the zoo was planned. All we have left is old photos which is quite a shame but not entirely shocking considering how we have treated historic landmarks around this city! Of course as a child I loved this exhibit and have a few mementos. I was wondering if time was playing tricks on my memory but remember a tunnel that maybe contained the fossilized Corythosaurus skeleton probably from the first museum mentioned above and indeed I found a Glenbow Archives photo of the outside of the tunnel created by Kanerva that featured high bas relief cave men and women and a sabre-toothed tiger, such a shame to lose this specimen of art deco inspired prehistoric craziness, totally bad decision!!! Anyway, I found a postcard book that I had as a souviner which shows many of the dino sculptures, below.
And a few of my own photos taken on old cameras with terrible exposure, no digital in those days kids!
Update: I finally found these photos of yours truly as a 7 year old at my favourite place in the world at the time.
And with a plesiosaur, head cut off in true 70's style photography!
Here is the "Tunnel of Time" which was a tunnel inside and on the outside had these Art Deco style cavemen, the Smilodon sculpture had two wrestling babies which look odd in this photo as the paint has worn off and shows white behind my head. I can't believe this was all torn down. Do you find a lot of Art Deco Prehistoric scenes around these days??? Good going Calgary!
I have never understood how the Calgary Zoo is run because it seems more like an institution bent on changing everything with an unending supply of money, no regard for the past, it always seems like change for change sake. This is how the Calgary Zoo is treating one of our most famous landmarks for the last 90 years, seeming shoved into a forgotten corner with a terrible fence around it, barely noticeable at all in fact one cannot even see Dinny from it's once prominent placement.
I'm sure I read that this is considered a Provincial Historic Resource so I hope that means some restoration money as the Zoo seems to hope this old guy crumbles so they can make way for some new multi-million dollar exhibit featuring rides for kids and souvenir shops! Sorry for the cynicism.
Dinny was a major influence on the Zoo, naming hot dogs "Dinny Dogs" and their quarterly magazine "Dinny's Digest" , once beloved now forgotten.
The three info plaques at the bottom of Dinny.
Where is that Corythosaurus skeleton? If memory serves me right it was moved to the amphitheater in the new Prehistoric Park, however, on my last visit I don't even know if the amphitheater was in operation and I completely forgot to look for it. It would be nice to display it again!
Poster and pennant, c 1970's
By the 1980's the Zoo wanted to expand and as mentioned earlier destroyed all the dinos John Kanerva built in the 1930's. Turned out the public really liked the Prehistoric Park idea and a new one was planned and built, opening spring 1983 and phase II 1984. This park featured hand sculpted rock formations meant to educate the public about geology likely to justify some kind of connection to the oil industry because this is oil country and they were paying for it! As an adolescent I still had a love of dinos and this park was like nothing ever seen before featuring a large waterfall, larger more realistic dinos and carefully considered plantings meant to echo the Creataceous as much as possible in our climate. I found some articles and pictures in the Zoo magazine Dinny's Digest from the time.
The new park takes shape. Dinosaurs being helicoptered in created quite the buzz in 1980's Calgary!
A lot of attention paid to creating rock formations mostly by sculpture students (who would later become my instructors at the Alberta College of Art)
A couple of interesting articles from the time.
The Prehistoric Park Now
Unfortunately the park is showing some signs of neglect, here the entrance appears unchanged since it's opening in 1983. In 2013 it was announced that the Prehistoric Park would be closing and the Asia exhibit taking it's place (where have we heard that before?) however, I cannot find any concrete information on this plan, certainly the park is still popular and remains open today. I hope the plan is not to neglect the place so much it has to be closed kind of like spilling something on that sweater grandma gave you so you don't have to wear it anymore?
Above an oversize and incorrectly postured T. Rex looms near the entrance. You can see how much the plantings have grown since the 1980's near the waterfall.
The park is themed in environmental landscapes such as early Rocky Mountains, Volcanic, Inland Sea and Swampy Lowlands.
A couple of the Triceratops.
Now and then, near the volcanic area one can see how much everything has grown over the decades.
Some of the dinos, from a high contrast Ankylosaurus to the green Edmontosaurus.
A lone Apatosaurus is a far cry from the old fashioned Brontosaurus.
Careful attention was paid to not include flowering plants or grasses in the Prehistoric Park. There are a few interpretive signs like this around the park many include a tactile feature as above.
The Inland Sea area with a few marine reptiles, It's hard to mount a display like this without seeing the bases so it comes off a little corny. The water on the other hand is beautifully clear though!
A picture from the 1980's on a cold winter day.
An awkwardly mounted Pterodactyl.
Above, a picture I took in the 1980's and how it appears today, why the trees?
An Iguanodon feature just for photographs.
A hard to see Segosaurus resides in the low land swamp area.
An interpretive sign explains the connection to birds and dinosaurs.
Criticism
While I don't want many things to change sometimes we can make improvements rather than throw out the entire thing like this park. It would be a shame to destroy the intricately sculpted rock formations that emulate the badlands, Canadian Shield, volcanoes and basalt formations and they seem to be holding up to millions of kids climbing all over them too. There are some issues though mainly not enough dinosaurs. For the last two years animatronic dinos were brought in and were quite popular but they were on loan and not permanent but some of the old sculptures were taken out and not put back in, it makes the park look too bare right now. There is a thematic problem, the old park from the 1930's was arranged chronologically this park makes little sense. Since we are famous for dinosaurs in the area maybe focusing on Cretaceous Alberta would be a good idea?, no Stegosaurus but how about a collection of Ceratopsians of which many different kinds have been discovered here? A stronger connection to the Tyrell Museum would make more sense, a family of Albertosaurus hunting an Edmontosaurus as the curator of this museum, Dr. Phillip Currie, has been theorizing that Albertosaurs probably lived and hunted in groups like lions. Which brings me to my other point, a stronger connection to living animals at the zoo, as we talk about feathers, if you want to see the closest thing to an Ornihtolestes or Struthiomimus go look at the Rhea or Ostrich in the living exhibits, other connections are group hunters or the living reptiles like tortoises, alligators and the Komodo Dragon. Extinction is another obvious connection here, asteroid theory aside, it's important to teach kids that extinction is real and is happening at a rapid pace in our times, you are also the member of a species Timmy and can also go extinct.
As an ardent horticulturalist I would like to see even more emphasis on plants, there are many examples of Ginko growing in Calgary and this would be the obvious choice to illustrate plant life of the Cretaceous, I have written about growing Ginko on this blog before, also more ferns as well. The park looks a little overgrown, it is getting hard to see some of the sculptures, it's probably time for a little editing.
A great idea for mounting Pterodactyls would be from underneath and over the water feature, as if trolling for fish, it would appear like a more natural behaviour and illustrate animal lifestyle. Since the water is so clear why not place sculptures under the water and remove them for the winter freeze? Things like the giant turtle Archelon, Ammonites, and prehistoric Crocodiles are obvious and local choices.
Finally, since there is a little movie called Jurassic Park I think the kids would like more Raptors, there are a few examples from Alberta which would also make more thematic sense.
Some dinosaur themed cement relief in the entrance tunnel under Memorial Drive
I hope the powers that be keep the Prehistoric Park and just tweak it a little to keep up to scientific discovery. It is fine to also keep some old examples of what we used to think dinosaurs were like to illustrate that science is ever changing with new evidence. Calgary has a long connection to dinosaurs and some argue because of oil is a big part of our history, as much as our cowboy history. This is a unique city and we should embrace all of the weirdness from our unique climate to once having North Americas first Prehistoric Park, it's all a part of us.
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