One of the personalities that helped shape the Royal Tyrrell Museum and indeed the shape of Drumheller over the last three decades has retired.

While Don Brinkman has decided to retire, the best place to find him will still be at the museum as he continues research on a few projects. Last week he was pouring over fish remains from microfossil sites. After 36 years it’s tough to get him out of the lab.

Brinkman began his career in 1982 before the Tyrrell opened. He was director of Preservation and Research.

    “The money for the museum was committed in late 1981, and the first director David Baird was hired in December of that year, so 1982 was when things officially got rolling,” he tells the Mail. I started in the fall.”

Some of the original researchers with him in those early days included Dave Eberth, Phil Currie, and Dennis Braman. He said the goal in the early days was to create a world-class Museum and they met that achievement.

“There was a three year building period, starting with a small core collection, but there was no design for the building, there was no design for the exhibits. Specimens had to be prepared and mounted. Looking back at it now, it was very ambitious to do that amount of work in that short of time,” he said.

    “We were all very young so it was all new to us. For most of us, it was the first permanent job we had. We were familiar with universities but not working in organizations like this,” said Brinkman, who, unlike his contemporaries, grew up in the area. “I knew what I was getting into moving to Drumheller.”

Since the creation of the museum, his career not only centred on the museum but his research. This has taken him all over Alberta, Canada, and the world. One of his many career highlights was an early trip as part of the  Canada–China Dinosaur Project.

“That was putting us on the international stage in a way that is difficult to match. Partly because the way it was done was very high profile with public education built into the project. The exhibit, the book, and the film were all planned from the beginning,” he said. “That was a time when China was really opening up to the world, it was a very pivotal time for science in China, and being part of that was definitely a highlight.”

Today, Brinkman will still be toiling on his research at the museum.

“My position is sort of equivalent to an emeritus situation at a university. I have a space and support so I can carry on with research projects,” he said.

He is also busy in the community. He volunteers with the East Coulee School Museum, and many will recognize him as the fiddler in the local band Wayfaring Fiddlers. He is also planning to travel.

Drumheller’s town-subsidized counselling program launched in the fall last year and was quickly filled, demonstrating the need for affordable mental health and counselling services in the valley.

The program, organized by Family and Community Support Services with a $20,000 budget provided by the Town of Drumheller, has provided support for 26 clients, both completed and on-going, with FCSS applying for increased funding of $25,000 in coming years due to the need seen for this new program.

FCSS coordinator April Harrison says the program was developed to “meet the gap in services” in town, providing counselling services for clients who did not fit into the existing supports in the community. She says a social needs assessment completed last year identified affordable counselling and mental health services as a high priority for Drumheller.

“The fact that we have eight on the waitlist, and there are probably more, shows there’s a high need for it,” she says, adding rural people often face magnified challenges in acquiring services they need.

“Urban centres have more provision and accessibility as it’s easier for people to get around with public transit. The needs are exacerbated in a rural community as it’s not as easy to get into the city to receive services, and a lot of people find face-to-face support helpful compared to online or phone support,” she says.

Existing services include Alberta Health Service’s mental health and addictions counselling, the Association of Communities Against Abuse who provides free counselling for individuals facing sexual abuse-related issues, and Wheatland County Counselling which offers private counselling services.

The subsidized counselling program is open to all residents of Drumheller, regardless of age, and also provides services for not only individual clients but couples and family groups.

The Hersch So Good Fund was established last year to raise funds for the program in addition to the budget provided by the town. Anyone wishing to donate to the fund can contact the FCSS office at (403) 823-1315.