Dino-sized donation for Morden museum

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This article was published 10/12/2008 (6454 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Sill Foundation has delivered a mosasaur-sized Christmas present to the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden.

The foundation will give $250,000 — it’s largest grant ever — over five years toward building a world-class centre for fossils of the giant monsters that roamed seas covering Manitoba 80 million years ago.

"The mosasaur museum should be to Morden what the Royal Tyrrell Museum (of dinosaur fossils) is to Drumheller (in Alberta)," said Hugh Arklie, Sill Foundation executive director.

The Morden museum houses Canada’s finest collection of marine reptile fossils, including mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. But it doesn’t have a proper home. Fossils are currently kept "in the basement" of the Morden Recreation Centre, Arklie said. The town is 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

"These are unique assets. They can’t be found anywhere else in Canada," he said.

"Wow!" said David Wilkinson, Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre executive director, regarding the grant. "It just underlines the foundation’s confidence in out project."

The museum needs space, better access, a location where visitors can easily find it, and proper climate control to preserve the fossils, he said.

"It will be a kind of mini Drumheller."

The fossil museum has had its visitors double to 8,000 in the past four years, but would like to see that number grow to 80,000, like the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Steinbach that receives busloads of American tourists every year.

The next step will be to get financial help from federal and provincial governments, and embark on a vigorous fundraising campaign, Wilkinson said. A feasibility study was performed earlier this year.

"We will be fundraising by any means possible," he said.

A new fossil museum could be the lynchpin to efforts to make the Pembina Valley a destination for tourists. Earlier this year, Altona opened its Gallery in the Park, a top-flight statue garden and indoor art gallery.

There are also plans for an interpretive centre at nearby Pembina Valley Provincial Park; Hy-Wire Zipline Adventures recently opened south of Manitou; and a museum-restaurant in a refurbished grain elevator in Plum Coulee is being discussed, although the project may be too big for the small community.

The Sill Foundation’s latest grants also include $7,500 for the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in Morden, and $50,000 for Bethel Heritage Park in Winkler, a heritage and horticultural park.

The interpretive centre would be built on the escarpment (the boundary of former Lake Agassiz) on the northwest edge of Morden, where the fossil centre also has its dig site. "We’re still finding substantial specimens year after year," Wilkinson said.

The Thomas Sill Foundation provides financial assistance to organizations working to advance the quality of life in Manitoba. Sill was a Winnipeg accountant who died in 1986.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca