Alberta may be one step closer to getting a new dinosaur museum, thanks to the support of celebrities such as Dan Aykroyd and international media attention brought to the project.
The $27 million Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is slated to be built 22 km west of Grande Prairie in 2013. Grande Prairie, one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities, is located 465 km northwest of Edmonton.
A host of celebrities were recently welcomed at Grand Prairie’s Crystal Square for the first Aykroyd Family and Friends Dinosaur Ball—an annual dinner and silent auction that raised $500,000 in support of the museum.
The 700 guests included philanthropist Bobby Kennedy; Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Dr. Spencer Reid on the hit TV show “Criminal Minds”; America’s best-selling crime writer, Patricia Cornwell; artist Johnny Alexander; and producer John Goldwyn.
In addition to hosting the ball, Aykroyd and his family have volunteered to be international ambassadors for the project.
“It is a Canadian storehouse, a treasure house, and I want to bring people from all over the world to Canada to help display what’s here and to show the world that we have this incredible resource right here in this beautiful province,” Aykroyd told reporters at the Pipestone Creek excavation site.
Legendary Alberta palaeontologist Philip Currie, after whom the museum is named, told The Epoch Times that the media attention from the celebrity ball catapulted the project “to another level.”
“People are taking it much more seriously now,” he said. “Up to this point everybody thought it was a pie-in-the-sky idea—now people are thinking in terms of a real project that’s moving somewhere. So [the celebrity ball] was almost like a watershed.”
The $27 million Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is slated to be built 22 km west of Grande Prairie in 2013. Grande Prairie, one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities, is located 465 km northwest of Edmonton.
A host of celebrities were recently welcomed at Grand Prairie’s Crystal Square for the first Aykroyd Family and Friends Dinosaur Ball—an annual dinner and silent auction that raised $500,000 in support of the museum.
The 700 guests included philanthropist Bobby Kennedy; Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Dr. Spencer Reid on the hit TV show “Criminal Minds”; America’s best-selling crime writer, Patricia Cornwell; artist Johnny Alexander; and producer John Goldwyn.
In addition to hosting the ball, Aykroyd and his family have volunteered to be international ambassadors for the project.
“It is a Canadian storehouse, a treasure house, and I want to bring people from all over the world to Canada to help display what’s here and to show the world that we have this incredible resource right here in this beautiful province,” Aykroyd told reporters at the Pipestone Creek excavation site.
Legendary Alberta palaeontologist Philip Currie, after whom the museum is named, told The Epoch Times that the media attention from the celebrity ball catapulted the project “to another level.”
“People are taking it much more seriously now,” he said. “Up to this point everybody thought it was a pie-in-the-sky idea—now people are thinking in terms of a real project that’s moving somewhere. So [the celebrity ball] was almost like a watershed.”
