Alberta’s stuffed gopher museum turns 30 years old

The Torrington Gopher Hole Museum in central Alberta has been drawing tourists to see its gopher dioramas for nearly three decades.

The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum in central Alberta is marking 30 years of presenting its local history in a wacky, albeit memorable, way.

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“I don’t know what’s wrong with people,” joked director Laural Kurta when asked in a recent interview to explain the museum’s popularity.

Between May and October – while only offering daily hours during July and August – the museum of stuffed gophers in Torrington counts about 15,000 visitors.

Anthropomorphic taxidermy is the official name for the dioramas depicting the history of the hamlet.

“I think part of it is that people just don’t have enough to laugh at,” Kurta speculates.

Scenes from the community and its past become comical with the stuffed rodents taking the place of humans, be it in church, on a sheet of curling ice, or working at long-closed businesses.

“At one point, there were three stores, three restaurants, a comic book store, arcade (and) pool hall. It was a busy, busy little place. But after the railway lines were lifted, the grain elevators went down, people had to take their grain to further markets outside of this community and everything here started to close,” Kurta explained, noting it’s a story familiar to many agricultural communities across the Canadian prairies.

“For us in particular, it’s left us with virtually nothing. Yet, thousands of people come every year for this ridiculous gopher museum, and we’re glad that we’re able to give them some kind of joy that way.”

The museum was created in 1995 with a $9,000 grant from the provincial government to develop a tourist attraction to boost local business. Since then, it has been fully funded by admission profits.

Its opening made international headlines due to protests by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) over the use of the dead animals – but that is precisely the museum’s draw.

“We’ve been, for three years, talking about this place,” said one museum visitor, Tom Higdon.

His partner, Karen Leonhardt, added, “I don’t know how many gopher museums there are in the world, but certainly there aren’t a lot. … It was just a chance to do something very unique and very local.”

Higdon said the museum saw a steady flow of people on the day they visited with their grandchildren.

“It’s like that movie, Field of Dreams. Build it and they will come, right?”

The museum has also sat on the bucket list of Tina Lorenz for a while, who called it “as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.”

“I had a blast with how whimsical the dioramas are,” Lorenz told CTV News Edmonton.

“When you look at things to do in Alberta, they talk about all the big things, like the sausage and the egg and the (Vulcan) Star Trek thing. This is iconic Alberta. You definitely want to come here.”

Although Kurta’s parents were among the museum’s founding members and they managed it for two-and-a-half decades, she once swore she’d never be involved with the place.

Five years ago, she was sucked into managing it by circumstance and now finds herself at the helm while the museum looks for a new home in Torrington due to a wasp and maple bug problem.

It took 30 years, but she has come to recognize both the museum’s significance and charm.

“It’s really important to represent what used to be here. So it’s not so much a vanity project for us, but it is telling stories that people are no longer around to tell,” Kurta said.

“I never wanted anything to do with this place, but I can stand back to the side and just listen to people laugh, and that truly is a gift.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Marek Tkach