Experience Southern Alberta The town of Walsh is located adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1), just west of the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. The friendly staff in the Travel Alberta Visitor Information Centre located here are eager to answer your questions. Medicine Hat is conveniently located 40 minutes west of Walsh on Hwy 1, at the eastern terminus of the Crowsnest Highway (Hwy 3). It is still strategically located for travellers, about 2 hours west of Swift Current and 3 hours east of Calgary. If you are planning to visit the attractions in southeast Alberta, consider using “The Hat” as your hub. It offers some very good accommodations, including camping sites. The Crowsnest Highway is the most southerly of three major roadways that link the Prairies to the Pacific. Referred to as simply “The Crow”, it runs west from Medicine Hat, through Lethbridge, and the Crowsnest Pass, at the British Columbia (BC) border. With a population of 92,000, Lethbridge is the 4th largest city in Alberta, located just 2 hours west of Medicine Hat.
The Crowsnest Pass is noted as the southwesterly attraction on our Dinosaur Trails map, because of the important bones and tracks found in this area. When here, be sure to visit the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre, the Bellevue Coal Mine, Lundbreck Falls, and the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Pick up a copy of Experience Waterton Lakes National Park.
“Black Beauty, a magnificent T. rex from the Crowsnest” Tyrannosaurus rex is the most famous dinosaur, partly because it has been known to the public since 1905, and because it is such an awesome animal. It is one of the largest, if not THE largest carnivorous land animal, and was one of the last and most specialized dinosaurs. One day in 1980, two secondary school students were fishing in the Crowsnest River close to the Crowsnest Pass. The fishing was not good, but they did find many black dinosaur bones in the banks of the river. One of their teachers contacted me about the discovery, and we became involved in an enormous excavation after recognizing that the boys had found an all-too-rare T. rex. The specimen became known as ‘Black Beauty’ because of the beautifully preserved black bones. It is one of the few that has travelled around the world, and has been on display in various Canadian and Japanese cities, plus Singapore and Sydney, Australia. This amazing dinosaur can seen at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller. Dr. Philip J. Currie
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