T.rex Discovery Centre

In 1991 a school principal, Robert Gebhardt, was shown a fossil site near Eastend by a palaeontologist and found a tooth and a vertebra; excavation over the following years produced Scotty, a Tyrannosaurus rex about sixty-five per cent complete. Analysis published in 2019 concluded Scotty is the largest and heaviest T. rex specimen known, estimated at around eight thousand eight hundred kilograms, and at over thirty years the oldest, with a skeleton showing broken ribs, an infected jaw and a damaged tail from a life of injuries. The centre stands over the Frenchman River valley with a fossil lab visible to visitors and dig programmes in summer.

History

The idea of a centre for the fossils of south-west Saskatchewan began in 1988, when the town of Eastend saw the need to show the record of the Frenchman River valley and the Cypress Hills, and the Tyrannosaurus known as Scotty was found nearby in 1991. The T.rex Discovery Centre, in a building designed by Stantec, opened in 2001, and on 14 February 2013 the Royal Saskatchewan Museum took over its operation (Wikipedia, T.rex Discovery Centre).

What you'll find

• Scotty - the largest and heaviest known T. rex, mounted and interpreted.
• The injury record - broken ribs and an infected jaw visible in the bones.
• The working lab - preparators cleaning fossils behind glass.
• The valley setting - the Frenchman River badlands the specimen came from.

When to go

May to September for full opening and the dig programmes; the centre reduces hours in winter. Public dig experiences run in summer and need booking.

What to expect

Eastend is remote, over an hour from Swift Current. The centre is modest in size next to the Royal Tyrrell in Alberta. Winter hours are short.

Nearby

Cypress Hills lie west; Swift Current is northeast.

Key facts