Forget Jurassic Park and Barney. If you love dinosaurs head for Dinosaur Provincial Park in south-eastern Alberta’s badlands, one of the richest dinosaur fossil reservoirs in the world. Some 75 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, this parched, rocky, eroded land looked dramatically different: it was a coastal plain covered by a lush subtropical forest peppered with swamps and rivers.

Dinosaur Provincial Park’s badlands are visually stunning in a minimalist sort of way. The erosive forces have carved hoodoos, sinkholes, narrow gullies, and multicoloured, deeply grooved hillsides. In addition, a green strip – the riparian corridor created by the Red Deer River – runs through the park.

This elongated oasis of life is rare in the prairie badlands, as are its old cottonwoods and many of the plant and animal species found within. For this reason, as well as the exceptional fossil beds and the park’s location in Canada’s most extensive tract of badlands, the United Nations bestowed upon Dinosaur the much coveted designation of World Heritage Site.