Please refer to the map on our Location page that shows how to get here from Winnipeg. Once in Morden, go north on second street off of Thornhill St. (hwy #3) and that will take you right to the Morden Community Centre.

The entire museum takes up 16,000 square feet. The average visitor will spend approximately an hour and a half hour going through the galleries and exhibits.

Unfortunately not. The province requires that only organizations with a Heritage Permit be allowed to legally collect vertebrate fossils in Manitoba. The CFDC is an annual permit holder.

If you find a fossil, the best thing to do is to leave it there in the ground and remember exactly where it is. Data collected from its location and proximity to other fossils can provide valuable information and is vital to the research process.

No, you cannot. The dig sites are all located on private property. Many of the owners are local farmers who have generously allowed us access to their land to find and excavate fossils.

No! The CFDC has marine reptile fossils from the saltwater Western Interior Seaway which covered central North America during the Late Cretaceous Period, 80 million years ago. Lake Aggasiz existed as a freshwater glacial melt lake over southern Manitoba only 12,000 years ago.

Bruce was found close to Thornhill approximately 10 km west of Morden. See more on Bruce at our All About Bruce page.

The bentonite miners who first encountered Bruce were discussing a skit in a Monty Python movie where everybody’s name was Bruce. Hence the colossal fossil remains were named.

Yes! Bruce is larger than the average sized Tyrannosaurus rex! Bruce is 43 feet long, the world’s largest publicly displayed mosasaur, while even a big T. rex measures “only” 35-40 feet!

During the Mesozoic Era there were many magnificent reptile forms on the earth! Dinosaurs like Spinosaurus, Triceratops, and T. rex ruled the land while their contemporaries the flying reptiles and the marine reptiles ruled the air and sea, respectively. For example, the flying Pteranodon was not a dinosaur… it belongs to a group called the Flying Reptiles that co-existed with the dinosaurs. Here in Manitoba, we had marine reptiles which also co-existed with the dinosaurs. While Albertosaurus and Lambeosaurus were fighting on land, the seaway that covered Manitoba was ruled by the fearsome mosasaur Tylosaurus and the fish-eating plesiosaur Dolichorhynchops. This made the Cretaceous Sea over Manitoba one of the most dangerous seas of all time!