Drumheller, Alberta, is the epicenter
of a number of Badlands and dinosaur adventures.
The town itself is kitschy,
the streets populated with statues of dinosaurs,
each seemingly competing with the others t
o be covered with the most original colours and designs.
Initially, I was appalled by these cheesy icons of marketing
that seemed to cheapen the town in the name of Paleo-tourism,
but when I saw children playing on them and laughing,
I realized that the marketers had gotten it right –
people learn best when the subject is fun.
At the information centre in Drumheller
stands a 26-meter-tall, 66,000-kilogram Tyrannosaurus Rex,
dubbed the World’s Largest Dinosaur,
and about four times the size of a real T.rex.
For a small fee, one can climb stairs inside the dinosaur
and look out over the landscape through the dinosaur’s mouth.
Not being a cheap thrill seeker myself,
and frugal to a fault,
I never went up there,
but I could see that the kids sure enjoyed it.
Drumheller might be known today for the dinosaurs,
but the town was built on coal
and did not always enjoy a good reputation.
An astounding 60-million tons of coal
was mined here between 1911 and 1965,
and the town was filled with brothels and bootleggers
and crawling with ruffians.
Thousands of Europeans were drawn to the area,
advertised as Canada’s Miracle City,
but the hard life of winter camping in tents
without heat, electricity, or plumbing,
the horrific injuries and deaths that occurred in the mines
(more than 200 miners were killed on the job),
and the ravaging Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918,
led to Drumheller being called
Hell’s Hole.
The true story of Drumheller,
however, is one of resilience.
I’m flipping through an older copy
of the Drumheller Vacation Guide,
which highlights three characters from the coal mining days.
Madame Fanny owned a brothel in 1917-18,
keeping order with a shotgun,
but displaying such charity by providing
groceries to struggling families.
J. Frank Moodie opened the Rosedale Mine in 1912,
hoping to create a model camp where workers were content,
but ended up clashing violently with pro-union groups
and hiring Pinkerton men to infiltrate and spy on his workers.
And Thomas Belot, a good husband to Doris
and good father to a little girl,
who, on his one day off in the week,
offered to cover a shift for a sick co-worker,
and was tragically killed
when a large boulder fell on his back.
Such is the rich human narrative of Drumheller.
