From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
A decade before Jurassic Park wowed audiences with big-screen dinosaur shenanigans, Saultites were able to take in the wonder of the ancient creatures at the Sault Ste. Marie Museum.
In 1984, The Royal Ontario Museum brought a dinosaur exhibit to the Sault St. Marie Museum, featuring life-size skeleton forms of the gigantic beasts. A ‘Dinosaur Days’ exhibit opened to the public on October 1, 1984, on the second floor of the museum. The travelling exhibition from The Royal Ontario Museum brought a fabulous display of life-sized fibreglass casts of dinosaurs. Text, photographs, illustrations and audio-visual presentations accompanied each of the five dinosaur replicas. Hours of childhood Lego building came in handy for the staff of the Sault Ste. Marie Museum, as they worked to put the dinosaurs together.
Assembling the heavy life-size skeletal forms of the dinosaurs was no easy task as museum volunteers Andy McGrath, Reilly Hart and John Eaton could attest.
As the Dinosaur Days exhibit prepared to open, Caretaker Dennis Frechette spoke with Sault Star reporter John Cairns about the assembly. “(He) termed the assembly process ‘not too bad’, although there were a few problems. ‘The most difficult part was carrying things up here,’ he said, standing amid the exhibit pieces on the weekend. ‘Our elevator wasn’t large enough for some of the crates. Other than that, they pretty much snapped together…But because they are dinosaurs, it is hard to get around the bulk.’”
An Albertasaurus was one of the slightly scary, completely fascinating displays of these formidable beasts that roamed the earth millions of years ago. The massive reptiles featured in the exhibit roamed the earth 12,000 to 100 million years ago.
The exhibit’s main feature was three large dinosaur models, each almost touching the ceiling of the museum. A fibreglass Parasaurolophus model was approximately 13 feet tall and 13 feet long. This altitudinous beast was an ‘unusual-looking creature with bird-like hips and a duck-like snout. A vegetarian, it used all four legs for walking but only its back two for running.’ Vegetarians front and centre, the Prosaurolophus, an herbivore, was also featured.
Not to be outdone, the carnivores were also represented with the Albertosaurus, an 11 ½ foot flesh eater whose remains were first discovered in Alberta. Smaller displays showed off the Eremotherium, a bear-like creature similar in size to an elephant, and some Ichthyosaurs, ancient sea creatures.
The skeletal models were fashioned largely from fibreglass, “Otherwise, the weight would be just tremendous,” Mr. Frechette explained.
In advance of the exhibit arriving at the museum, Curator Betsy Allaway put out a request for children to send her their drawings of dinosaurs. The pictures were put on display for all the visitors to the exhibit to see, and each drawing featured the name, age, and school of the young artists.
Dinosaurs have always been a big hit with children, and the exhibit at the museum was no exception. Betsy Allaway reported that many teachers brought their classrooms to ‘view the bones’ while the exhibit was in the Skylight Gallery and that students enjoyed the ‘fascinating experience’. The exhibit ended in mid-December 1984, with a dinosaur farewell party serving free pop. Onlookers had one last chance to see the gigantic dinosaur casts and admire the Sault children’s dinosaur art. The exhibit went out, of course, with a roar.
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