Canada's Dinosaur Park

While staying at Warsaw Caves Conservation Area, I was pushed an ad for Canada's Dinosaur Park

I clicked through, took a quick look, and decided to Google to see how far away it was, before getting too excited. It was only 15 minutes away!

I wasn’t sure if I could convince Porter to do another “field trip”, as we’d just made the drive out to Petroglyphs Provincial Park that morning.

But hey... animatronic dinosaurs!

Obviously, we decided to do a last minute field trip the next day!

Home of the Indian River Reptile Zoo, the park is a registered reptile sanctuary charity. All proceeds from the ticket sales go to supporting their sanctuary for live rescued reptiles.

It’s also one of the only accredited reptile zoos in Canada, with hundreds of live reptiles being cared for.

So, you can go learn about extinct animals, while also helping out endangered species and abandoned or rescued pets.

And, hey, Indian River is a lot closer to the Greater Toronto Area, than the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology is! (It’s still a bucket list item for a future trip, though!

Anyway, let’s tell you all about it!

The Basics:

Location Name: Canada’s Dinosaur Park
Address: 2206 County Road 38, Indian River, ON K0L 2B0
Website: Canada’s Dinosaur Park
Price There are different fees based on age and activity/activities booked. See https://reptileanddinosaurpark.org/index.php/admission-tickets/ for more details.
Reservations: Not applicable - walk up tickets only.

Logistics

Some good information to help you plan your visit to Canada’s Dinosaur Park:

Registration and Check In

Entrance to - and exit from - the park is via the gift shop.

This is also where you’ll pay your admission. For those doing the walking tour, the employee lets you in through the Reptile Sanctuary (something to keep in mind, if you aren’t a fan of live reptiles!).

If you’re doing it as a driving tour only, they’ll give you a receipt to show to another employee, camped out at the start of the drive.

We elected to do the walking tour, to see the whole park. We were kind of making the assumption that the walking trail and the driving tour took the same path, but that wasn’t the case.

We noticed that we were missing some good views of certain dinosaurs, that would be better seen from the driving tour.

As it turns out, we were able to add a driving tour on at the end, for just $5 (this is per car, not per person). This is discounted from the rate you’d pay if you were only doing the driving tour.

The employee that helped us at both points was friendly and knowledgeable.

Maps and Signage

What you’ll need to know to get there, and get around...

Getting to the Park

The entrance to the parking lot is not well marked. We were coming from Warsaw Caves, and - as we were approaching it - Google Maps thought we overshot it, and told us to turn right on the highway.

This took us on a 15 minute drive around a big loop, to end up exactly where we were.

This time, we figured it out - you want to turn in when you see the signage for the food truck! THAT will get you there.

In the Park

There is a park map on the website, but it’s very cartoonish and not really to any scale. It also seemed pretty inaccurate - maybe out of date?

I asked about a map when we checked in, and was told there isn’t one - but that the signage would make things obvious. We found this to be the case - it’s a pretty straightforward layout, and it kind of leads you around the park.

It’s not really set up for “I want to beeline to (whatever attraction)”. You just kind of meander your way along their set path, for the most part.

The only issue we had with the signage was the lack of signage at the Croc-Walk. The website had mentioned going into the building and walking along a bridge over the enclosures ... we could find NO way in, no entrance marked, etc.

There was also no signage saying anything like “this exhibit is closed”, so it was just... odd.

Connectivity

We had great cell phone reception throughout the park.

This came in handy when I was taking photos of dinosaur butts and posting them to my friend Rachel’s Facebook wall.

Accessibility

The whole park - with the exception of the interior of the Croc Walk - is noted to be wheelchair accessible.

Some sections of the walking trail seemed a little too narrow to really fit a wheelchair, but other than that, it was a very accessible park. The trails were well packed, without any real obstacles.

There was some accessible parking out front, fairly wide aisles in the gift shop and reptile sanctuary, and lots of space around the exhibits in the Dinosaur Museum. The ramp leading up to the museum was in really nice condition, too.

One thing to note: Some of the enclosures in the reptile sanctuary won’t be visible to those seated in a wheelchair - they’re stacked on top of each other.

I did the walk on a bad tendon day - with my knees and right hip joining in on the fun - and had no issues. I would have been fine doing the walk in a boot or while using my cane.

Pets

We didn’t see any dogs during our visit, nor did we see any information about pets on site, or on the website. I was also unable to reach anyone by phone to ask.

So, I would assume no dogs. I can’t see them wanting you to bring them in the building, and that appears to be the only way to do the walk.

I did see one review that was from someone who took her dog on the drive through, though.

Parking

There’s a fair amount of parking, but it was definitely filling up by the time we left - just after noon, on a holiday Sunday.

We got there shortly after it opened, and had no trouble getting a parking spot.

Park Amenities

Some information on the amenities available to you, as you explore the world of pre-historic dinosaurs:

Creature Comforts

There are two washroom stalls in the gift shop, they were in good condition at the time of our visit.

There were also washroom facilities in the Dinosaur Museum. Porter saw that they existed, anyway - neither of us used them.

Nature Gift Store

It is dangerous to go into a dinosaur park gift shop as two grown nerd adults with credit cards, and this goes double when you’re both enablers for each other.

The Nature Gift Store has a super cute selection of gifts and souvenirs, including a TON of dinosaur plush toys.

Definitely not the most affordable offerings, but hey - it’s for charity, so you can feel good about any poor financial decisions you may find yourself making!

I’m honestly still shocked that we didn’t walk out with the giant alligator stuffed animal. It was probably close to ½ the width of our RV - snout to tail -and it would have been super cute to see it stretched across the length of the over-cab area, with a pile of cats snuggled up on it!

In the end, we bought two (more reasonably sized!) stuffed dinosaurs, and an ice cream sandwich for Porter.

Food Truck & Picnic Area

We were eyeing the delicious food truck menu on the way in, but didn’t think too much of it - we had plans to make and shoot a recipe after our “quick” visit.

The one hour we expected to spend ended up being more than two, so we were tired, hungry, and - in Porter’s case - hangry.

So, I made him go buy himself something - he picked the Fried Pickle Poutine.

OMFG.

He said it was really good - the fries were crisp and tasted really fresh - you could tell they used clean oil. Apparently they’re hand made.

It had some kind of creamy dill pickle sauce, cheese curds, a red sauce (it wasn’t very hot, so we’re not sure what it was), and breaded, deep fried pickles. It smelled AMAZING.

He said that the menu looked great, they had a good variety of foods offered. As far as the poutines go, they also had a butter chicken poutine, and a jerk chicken poutine.

YUM.

Anyway, there’s apparently some picnic area looking over the mini golf course - he just ate it in the car, though.

Attractions

Everything you need to know about the various attractions at Canada’s Dinosaur Park...

The Dinosaur Walk

The walk was pretty cool, and had a really high density of displays. You didn’t really have to walk far between ... anything. As soon as you walked past one display, the next was basically starting.

There’s a huge variety of dinosaurs, from a GIANT T-Rex to ones that are more knee-high or so, many of which had little plaques that told you the species of dinosaur, and some interesting facts about it.

Lots of excellent opportunities for ridiculous selfies, BTW.

They have life sized models of the two largest Tyrannosaurus Rex remains ever found - “Sue”, a 44ft long skeleton on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, and “Scotty”, the new largest discovery as of 2019.

Scotty is 45' long, and on display at the The Royal Saskatchewan Museum, BTW.

I’m not sure which of the T-Rexes we saw were Scotty and Sue, though. There were a LOT of them - but I’m assuming the one outside of the Museum is one of the two named ones.

Anyway, some of the dinosaurs were animatronic, to various degrees. Some would just move a head or jaw, some had arm movement, in other cases, it was just some roaring.

Aside from the dinosaurs, there were also giant bugs - Bees on giant clover flowers, a Preying Mantis, ants in a few places, etc.

A lot of the trail is right out in the open, which can be great for photos... but we got overheated pretty quicky.

Definitely bring a sun hat / sunglasses / etc if you’re visiting on a bright day!

Dinosaur Drive-Thru

You can elect to do the dinosaur trail as a drive through.

You’ll mostly see the same things as you can from the walk through, but at different angles. Sometimes you’re much closer than you are on the walk, sometimes you’re further away.

If you have the time - and budget - we recommend doing both. This gives you the best overall experience, and you won’t feel like you’re missing something.

As mentioned, it’s just a small, per-car add on fee to do the drive-through, if you buy the walk through tour.

Reptile Sanctuary

I’m not a fan of snakes - at all - and still, this was really cool.

They don’t buy any of their animals, it’s all rescues and surrenders. They had everything from small turtles and lizards, to a couple GIANT pythons.

There were all kinds of snakes, from little cute green ones that didn’t look real, to every manner of super venomous snakes.

Everything was labeled with the name, the regions they were from, and some facts about them- like scarcity and whether or not they were venomous.

Did you know that Black Mambas aren’t black? I guess I always assumed they were, but nope. The “black” is apparently because their mouths are black.

The more you know!

Dinosaur Museum

Feathers and Fossils Museum is a separate building from the Gift Shop and Reptile Santuary, kind of a barn structure - a big, open area with exhibits throughout.

The exhibits ran the gamut from fossils and replicas, to live tortoises, complete skeletons, and some really cool, larger animatronic dinosaurs.

They had one section where they invited you to touch and feel the display, which was probably great for younger kids.

There was also a set of 2 Velociraptors, which were done up to look like “Blue” in the Jurassic World series - super cute.

(I feel like “cute” isn’t the right word for them, but ...)

Croc-Walk

Croc Walk is another separate building, which has alligator, caiman, and crocodile enclosures most of the way around it.

Some of them had some LAZY crocodiles splooted out everywhere, sunning themselves without a care in the world.

The other part of the famous croc-walk involves walking along a bridge on the inside of the building, over top of several pond enclosures.

We were able to catch a glimpse of the bridge inside, but couldn’t actually figure out how to get in. One door had some plastic... snow fencing?... type stuff on it, so I wonder if the inside was closed down during our stay?

Too bad, that seemed like a really cool attraction!

Mini Golf

For an additional fee, you’re able to book a round of mini golf in the “Standing Stones 18-Hole Championship Mini-Golf” Course.

We didn’t do it, but it looks cute!

Bone Yard

The Bone Yard is a cute little bone dig set up for children of all ages. Basically a couple of large sandboxes, with dinosaur bones to unearth.

A little further down the path, there’s a similar type of activity, on the side of the first museum building. Rather than digging bones in a sandbox, though, you’re brushing off bones in raised beds.

Niantic Games

Shockingly, there are only two Ingress Portals / Pokestop / Gym there!

We had kind of assumed that there would be a ton of them - kind of disappointed that wasn’t the case. We were ready to clear our gifts out, and just get a bunch of Dinosaur gifts to send out.

Nooope.

I suppose we could have taken some time to try to fix that and submitted EVERY large dinosaur, but by that point... too tired and hungry!

Final Thoughts

What a cool way to spend the morning!

An awesome place to visit in general, and it kept us entertained for a lot longer than we thought we’d be there.

I honestly hadn’t anticipated doing anything more than a cursory look when it came to the reptiles area - like I said, not a fan! - but they were actually pretty fascinating.

We saw our first Massassauga Rattlesnake. Much better that happened on the other side of some glass, but hey - now we can see we saw one on one of our camping trips, right?

Anyway, we’ll definitely be back.

Also? It was another great reminder of how lucky we both are to have found a fellow nerd to get hitched to, LOL.

More Places to See

Looking for some nice sights to see and great places to visit while you're out on your camping adventures? Here are a few of our favourite day use parks, attractions, etc.

Batchawana Bay
Big Bay, Ontario
Bruce Peninsula National Park
Falls Reserve Conservation Area
Flowerpot Island
Gariepy Creek Falls
Menesetung Bridge
Point Pelee National Park
Provoking Falls
Scenic Caves Nature Adventures
Screaming Heads
Spirit Rock Conservation Area
Temagami Fire Tower