Save Tyra: Help Protect Drumheller’s Worlds Largest Dinosaur

From The Author: the Drumheller Chamber of Commerce announced they’d vacate Tyra’s lease by December 2029, threatening to topple the World’s Largest Dinosaur. For me, AJ, a proud new Drumhellerite, it was shock. Tyra’s not just a 26.3-meter T. rex towering over our Badlands—she’s the heart of our community, a beacon of our dinosaur-obsessed soul. That’s why I launched a petition https://www.change.org/WorldsLargestDino to #SaveTyra, and I’m asking you the readers of the Badlands Journal, locals, dino-lovers and your friends and family to sign it. Together, we can keep her roaring for generations. Picture this, you’re road-tripping through Alberta, and there she is—Tyra, jaws agape, daring you to climb her 106 stairs for a view that stretches across the Badlands. Since 2000, she’s welcomed over two million adventurers to Drumheller, the “Dinosaur Capital of the World.” Built from fiberglass dreams in a Philippine hangar, painted with community pride, she’s more than a stop on your itinerary—she’s a love letter to our prehistoric past and a rallying cry for our future. Here’s why Tyra’s a must-do, and why I’m fighting to keep her standing. Thanks for listening please sign the petition and share with your friends and enjoy the article.

The Day the Asteroid Hit

In March 2025, an announcement struck Drumheller like a cosmic blow, reverberating through the Badlands with the force of the asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The Drumheller & District Chamber of Commerce (DDCC) revealed it would vacate the lease of the gift shop and visitor center beneath Tyra, the World’s Largest Dinosaur, by December 2029. This strategic shift in the Chamber’s mandate—an opaque pivot away from maintaining the towering T. rex—placed Tyra’s future in peril. Her removal loomed as a real possibility, a day the community now calls, with grim theatricality, “The Day the Asteroid Hit.” The news landed like a meteorite in a town that’s built its identity on prehistoric pride. Residents and business owners reeled, stunned by the lack of public consultation. Lets traces Tyra’s epic saga—her painstaking creation, her cultural ascent, and the fight to preserve a giant that’s more than fiberglass and steel.

Tyra the Worlds Largest Dinosaur!

At 26.3 meters (86 feet) tall, Tyra reigns as the World’s Largest Dinosaur, a green-and-yellow colossus overlooking Alberta’s rugged Badlands. Since her unveiling on October 13, 2000, she’s drawn over two million visitors to climb her 106 internal stairs and peer out through her toothy jaws. She’s a roadside marvel, a cultural cornerstone, and a testament to a town dubbed the “Dinosaur Capital of the World.” But as her final roar nears, Tyra’s story demands telling—from her birth in a Philippine hangar to her evolution into Drumheller’s beating heart, and the uncertain horizon beyond 2029.

The Birth of a Behemoth: Tyra’s Construction Process

Tyra’s origin is a tale of vision, logistics, and sheer grit—a monument not unearthed from the earth but forged by human hands. In the late 1990s, Drumheller’s Chamber of Commerce, spearheaded by Corey Campbell, faced a challenge: the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a paleontological powerhouse on the town’s western edge, drew 430,000 visitors yearly, yet many bypassed downtown. Campbell’s brainwave was audacious—build a T. rex so massive it’d stop traffic dead, luring tourists into the heart of Drumheller. Not content with a static statue, he insisted on an interactive twist: a climbable interior, turning a photo op into an adventure. The project kicked off with a $1.065 million budget, a hefty sum for a town of fewer than 8,000. Early concepts flirted with concrete, but Bruce Dalen of Calgary’s Waterfun Products—then known for waterslides—pushed for fiberglass. “Concrete would’ve been a nightmare,” Dalen later recalled. “Too heavy, too brittle for a structure this size.” Fiberglass offered durability and a lighter frame, critical for a giant stretching 46 meters (151 feet) long and weighing 65,770 kilograms (145,000 pounds). Tyra would tower at 26.3 meters—four and a half times larger than a real T. rex—demanding a global effort to bring her to life.

From Model to Monster

Construction began with a 14-inch clay model, a miniature Tyra sculpted with lifelike precision—muscular haunches, tiny arms, a gaping maw poised to strike. This prototype was shipped to a Philippine aircraft hangar, chosen for its vast space and skilled labor pool. There, artisans from Queensland’s Natureworks, an Australian firm famed for oversized animal replicas, scaled it up. Using advanced molding techniques, they crafted her in sections—head, torso, limbs—each a hollow fiberglass shell reinforced with resin. “It was like assembling a prehistoric puzzle,” said a Natureworks technician in a 2001 interview. The hangar buzzed with activity: saws whirred, molds cured, and workers hand-painted her green hide with yellow streaks, mimicking a T. rex’s theorized camouflage.

Transoceanic Trek

By mid-2000, Tyra’s pieces were complete—too large for a single shipment. Sliced into transportable chunks, they crossed the Pacific in cargo containers, a 7,000-kilometer journey from Manila to Vancouver, then trucked inland to Drumheller. Reassembly was a logistical ballet. Cranes hoisted her segments onto a steel skeleton, welded on-site by a local crew. This frame, anchored deep into the Badlands soil, bore her weight while allowing slight flex in Alberta’s fierce winds. “We had to account for everything—blizzards, heatwaves,” Dalen noted. “She’s built to sway, not snap.”

The Inner Beast

Tyra’s interior was its own marvel. A 106-step spiral staircase, painted with murals of prehistoric jungles and faux fossils, wound through her red-tinted throat to a platform in her jaws. Engineers carved out her head to fit up to 12 people, framing windows between her teeth for a panoramic view. Ventilation slits—disguised as nostrils—kept climbers cool, while LED lights (added in 2015) illuminated her gullet. The stairs, bolted to her steel spine, were a late addition, nearly scrapped for cost until Campbell insisted, “If they can’t climb her, what’s the point?”

Final Touches

Assembled by September 2000, Tyra faced a grueling pre-launch phase. Workers sanded seams, applied weatherproof sealant, and tested her stability with sandbags simulating visitor weight. Her dedication on October 13, 2000, drew hundreds—locals cheered as Campbell cut the ribbon, and Tyra’s jaws opened to her first climbers. She wasn’t named Tyra then—early nicknames like “Millie” (for millennium) faded, and a 2020 public vote settled on “Tyra,” a moniker as bold as her silhouette against the Badlands sky.

Maintenance Marathon

Keeping Tyra upright is a saga itself. By 2020, sun and snow had faded her paint, prompting a $300,000 overhaul. Eight workers from F & D Scene Changes Ltd. scaled her with 550 liters of paint, dangling from harnesses to refresh her hues. In 2023, internal steel corroded by moisture required welding crews to reinforce her frame—a $150,000 fix. Each effort underscores her complexity: Tyra’s no static prop, but a living structure demanding care.