Grande Prairie area dinosaur featured in upcoming Walking with Dinosaurs television series

Emily Bamforth applies plaster to the pachyrhinosaurus lakusta skull to prepare it for its move in the Pipestone Creek bone bed about 40 km west of Grande Prairie, Alta. on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (Photo by Jesse Boily)

After almost 25 years a show that brought dinosaurs to life on our television screens is returning, with a local dinosaur taking the spotlight.

BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs will feature Wembley’s own Pipestone Creek bonebed and its locally unique dinosaur, the pachyrhinosaurus.

“I really loved the original Walking with Dinosaurs, because it was the first time that they had brought dinosaurs to life in a way that presented them as animals,” said Emily Bamforth, Philip J. Currie Museum (PJCDM) curator.

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She said although dinosaurs were seen on the big screen in movies like Jurassic Park they were depicted as monsters.

“Walking with Dinosaurs was really like a nature documentary about dinosaurs, and no one had ever done that before, so it was hugely influential for me as a kid, and I think it was one of the milestones in terms of the things that influenced me, in terms of the wanting to go into paleontology.”

Bamforth is now part of the series as she will help tell the more than 70-million-year-old story of the pachyrhinosaurus and the river of death.

“We tell a story about the bonebed and the herd of animals and the dying from a flood and then getting preserved, but to actually have that brought to life is kind of jaw-dropping,” said Bamforth. She hasn’t yet seen the final episode, but an early draft left her with “tingles” due to how real it felt.

“These aren’t just dusty old bones sitting in the ground, these were animals living in this ecosystem,” she said.

“All of this happened right here in northern Alberta, this was our world back then.”

A young pachyrhinosaurus named Albie will be featured in the fifth episode of the new series.

“Every year, his herd makes an epic journey north as the seasons change,” says a BBC press release. “Along the way, he will encounter clashing bulls, tyrannosaur predators, and freak weather events.”

According to the BBC, the visual effects teams built up the skeleton, musculature, and finally, the skin in a process that took about 2.5 years.

Bamforth says the BBC initially contacted her in 2023 when the show was scouting for various sites worldwide to feature.

“All of the sites in the world, and all the big museums doing big research, they chose us as one of six sites in the world featured for this series, so it really is an incredible honour,” she said.

Bamforth and the paleontologist team at PJCDM have been busy: Just last year they made the most significant find to date: a 1.6 metre-long, 461-kilogram skull.

It made international headlines and now the museum is once again in the global spotlight thanks to the BBC.

“I think it’s bigger than we sort of expected it to be,” said Bamforth, who said she’s done over 11 media interviews in the past week from outlets in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

“It is a very special site; it’s like no other in the world, like no place I’ve ever worked has been like this.”

The Pipestone Creek bonebed is one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America.

“I think the community of Grande Prairie and the surrounding communities should be really proud of the fact that this is here and that we have the PJCDM that is helping tell that story, and now we have people from around the world that are interested in coming here,” said Bamforth.

“This is something that’s ours, and we can really showcase the amazing paleontology that we have up here, which hasn’t really been well appreciated in the past.”

She hopes it will bring more international and local visitors to the site to discover what it offers.

Walking with Dinosaurs premiered in the UK on May 25 and will premiere on PBS in Canada on June 16.

By Jesse Boily, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Town & Country News