The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is located near the Pipestone Creek
bonebed, part of the
Wapiti Formation which contains fossils from the
Late Cretaceous to early
Paleocene epoch. The bonebed was discovered by local school teacher Al Lakusta in 1974. Lakusta found the bones belonging to
Pachyrhinosaurus, a type of horned dinosaur which was named
Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai after Lakusta. The Pipestone Creek bonebed was found to have thousands of fossils and is considered one of the densest fossil sites in the world, and subsequently the area would come to be known as
The River of Death. In 2011 the society changed the name of the proposed museum from
River of Death and Discovery Dinosaur Museum to the
Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, owing to the support and notoriety of the Canadian paleontologist and concerns over the previous name. Much of the funding for the
CA$26-million museum came from the
County of Grande Prairie ($7-million, eventually $19.39-million), which owns the building and 10-acre site, as well as the
City of Grande Prairie ($3.5-million),
Municipal District of Greenview ($250,000), the Government of Alberta ($10-million) and private donations. The county and society commissioned
Teeple Architects of
Toronto to design the
LEED certified building, with an intended opening date of December 2012. Amongst those in attendance were Aykroyd's wife, American actress
Donna Dixon,
Saturday Night Live executive producer
Lorne Michaels, actor
Matthew Gray Gubler and writer
Patricia Cornwell. Funding was eventually secured as the price tag rose to $34-million, with the County of Grande Prairie providing additional funding to total $19.39-million, In recognition of his support to the museum, the museum's theater was named the
Aykroyd Family Theatre, and in partnership with the
National Geographic Society, is the only theatre in Canada licensed to show National Geographic films. Fossils on display in the museum include
pachyrhinosaurus lakustai. The museum is part of a larger plan to make the town a stop for paleontology tourists who also visit the
Tumbler Ridge Museum in
British Columbia. The museum drew more than 100,000 visitors in its first eleven months of operation, more than double the projections. In 2014, the museum's building, designed by Teeple Architects, was named by
Azure as one of their top ten projects to follow that year. Its 2015 opening was recognized as one of the top museum openings worldwide by
Conde Nast Traveler. ==Images==