Brooks Mayor and president of Canadian Badlands, Barry Morishita and Lonna Hoggan, discussed a new Dinosaur Trail Project as a partnership between Canadian Badlands and the Town of Drumheller.
    The plan is to designate billboard style signs from the Dinosaur Provincial Park to the Royal Tyrrell Museum to generate and direct traffic to continue the dinosaur experience for tourists visiting Eastern Alberta.
    “I think that it turns a one day outing into a possible overnight outing,” said Morishita. “I think that’s one of the key things and the other thing is I think there is a lot of things to discover between here and Drumheller and from Drumheller to the Dinosaur Park area. Just having that opportunity to expose travellers and tourists to the unique and different opportunities and keep them overnight. That’s kind of the primary goal.”
    The largest number of tourists coming to the area are drawn from Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Regina according to Morishita.
    “The Dinosaur Trail is a project we have been working on for quite a few years at Canadian Badlands and the idea is to bring visitors from Dinosaur Provincial Park to the [Royal] Tyrrell Museum and of course take people from the Tyrrell Museum to Dinosaur [Provincial] Park through something designated as dinosaur trail which will take them through some unique canadian badlands landscapes.” said Morishita.
    The roadway they chose is focused on a route along the Red Deer River valley. It will begin at the Royal Tyrrell Museum heading east towards East Coulee and Dorothy on Highway 570. From there, it will snake it’s way south towards the Hamlet of Patricia on Highway 876 which will lead to Dinosaur Provincial Park.
    The City of Brooks has put $10,000 towards signage and Special Areas and the County of Newell have also pitched in for a grand total of $32,000 including installation.
    The goal is to have one design that is recognizable throughout the entire trail.
    “It will basically be a reflective fluorescent green and yellow material and it will have a black outline of a dinosaur, triceratops or something very visible on the signage,” continued Morishita. “The signs will hopefully indicate how far you are away from where you’re going so if you are going to Dinosaur Park it’ll say 100 kilometers to Dinosaur Park or turn here or those kinds of things.”
    Google will create a link for google maps which will create a map overlay to travel through for tourists to utilize. Travel Alberta will verify the trail and make sure all points of interest on the trail are accounted for.
    “You can just create a link and flop it on your map,” said Morishita.
    The project signs are expected to be seen on the roads later this year.

    There is another change coming to the local Co-op as it disbursed its final round of grants to community groups through the Till Tape Program.
    The Community Cares Till Tape program at the Drumheller Co-op has been a flagship program and since its beginning, has donated over $370,000 to community-based groups and organizations.
    In October of last year, the Drumheller Co-op and the Westview Co-op announced it would be amalgamating. This came into effect on February 4.
    With this change, comes the end of the Community Cares Till Tape Program and the Community Gift Card Program. However, they are exploring new community support programs.
    “The Drumheller Co-op will transition current programs (Community Cares Till Tape Program, Community Gift Card Program, etc.) to new and exciting programs as we move forward,” states an email from Co-op.
    “As such, we will no longer be running our current programs such as the Community Cares Till Tape Program and the Community Gift Card Program. We will communicate these new programs as they are implemented, so please stay tuned as we continue our new adventure – as we have said, ‘Better Together!’”
     At the most recent disbursement of the Community Cares, presented to community groups on Tuesday, January 30, 27 groups received about $7,300, making a grand total for 2017 to  $10,390. Some of the top recipients of the program include the Drumheller FunTeam, The Salvation Army, Morrin School and the Drumheller and District Humane Society.
    “The Co-op offers a sincere thank you to all those groups who have supported this program, and looks forward to community groups participating in new programs,” states the release.