A new exhibit at the Royal British Columbia Museum called Orcas: Our shared Future, opened on April 16, and a local shop tucked away in the community of East Coulee played a large role in bringing the exhibition to life.
Dinosaur Valley Studios has carved out a unique niche, and for the Royal British Columbia Museum, this meant creating the armature for an Orca skeleton on display.
“This is the first major exhibit we have done with them,” said the president of Dinosaur Valley Studios, Frank Hadfield. “We are in some talks for future projects as well.”
Fabricator Bronson Kozdas said every project is different but each have similar goals.
“The main goal is to support the bones physically and be as invisible as possible. If we do our job right, you don’t really notice what we did,” said Kozdas.
He adds the bones have to be removable for research, and minimally impacted to preserve their integrity. The Orca is suspended in the exhibit and posed as if it were chasing salmon upwards out of the water.
This project was a bright spot for a small local business in the age of COVID. While much of their work is shipped nationally and internationally, the whole world is experiencing a slowdown.
“We have a number of projects that are waiting to go. We have a potential project in Sparwood BC, and another large project in Winnipeg, and one in Long Island, New York, and these are all held up due to the travel restrictions. But we are just doing what we can remotely until we get back in the swing of things. A lot of our stuff is not virtual, we have to have the real stuff,” said Hadfield.
Part of their success is being adaptable. The business started in about 2006, focusing on skeletal reconstructions, but that has since morphed into other facets. This includes film and prop work, corporate work, such as their paleo panels.
They even have a couple of local projects. One is at the Splash Park with the Drumheller Rotary Club. They are creating a cartoon-like dinosaur figure that will also function as a donation box. They are also creating a model of Eugene, the protagonist in the locally produced children’s books “Have You Seen My Human? A Badlands DinoStory.”
“Because we work globally, I think we have been able to live through this,” he said. “I think what separates us is we are a little more diverse in what we do.”
Currently, they are working on building a support system for a gigantic fin whale for an upcoming project for a village called Middle Arm in Newfoundland.
“It is actually going to be part of a tourism initiative, we have already done two whales there, and this will be the third in the series,” said Hadfield.
So far, they have the skull and flippers at the shop, and the rest of the skeleton is expected over the summer so they can complete the built. In the end, it will be over 60 feet long. The skeleton will be mounted and assembled in Drumheller and then disassembled to be shipped.
“The logistics of this build around will be much different than the other because the Orca is only about 20 feet,” said Hadfield
In the meantime, Dinosaur Valley Studios will keep plugging along until restrictions are lessened.
“I think it is going to be a very busy summer once the restrictions are off, I think it is going to open the floodgates. We are trying to get prepared as well,” he said.
