Calgary Zoo’s historic dinosaur to receive much-needed repairs

A facelift for Calgary Zoo's Dinny Kevin Fleming reports on the plans to repair the iconic statue at the Calgary Zoo.

Dinny the dinosaur, a Calgary Zoo staple since his construction in 1935, will undergo an overhaul to ensure he survives for the foreseeable future.

“Generations of Calgarians have been growing up with Dinny for the last number of decades whether it was climbing on him as a kid or having picnics with family in front of him on the green grass,” said Josh Traptow, executive director of the Calgary Heritage Authority.  “It’s nice to see that he’s going to be shored up. He’s going to have some love and attention and he’ll be able to be a fixture for future generations to come.”

The statue is on the inventory of Calgary’s evaluated historic resources and is one of only three public art installations to make the list.

“I can’t imagine, to build something like that brand new today, what that would cost and the engineering that would go into it,” pondered Traptow. “The fact that they did something like that in 1935…very impressive.”

The brontosaurus, which was built by hand using pressed concrete, has been relocated on St. George’s Island several times over the decades but has been a fixture on the south edge of the zoo in recent years. His current location has him off the beaten path, in an area overlooking traffic on Zoo Road.

The City of Calgary and the Calgary Zoo will share the cost of Dinny’s repairs, estimated at $200,000, that will included a reinforcement of its neck and left rear leg from inside the statue.

Traptow questions whether the repair effort will dispel the myths that surrounds Dinny and the contents of the dinosaur’s character.

“There’s rumors that there was a car inside him, that there were outhouses inside him, that he was stuffed with newspaper,” recounts Traptow. “All those urban legends that people heard growing up about Dinny the dinosaur, we might just see what exactly is inside him.”

The 12-metre tall and 36-metre-long statue is the lone remnant of the zoo’s Natural History Park that was dismantled in 1983. His repairs are expected to be complete in 2019 in late spring or early summer.

With files from CTV’s Kevin Fleming