Royal Alberta Museum officially opens in Edmonton

After three-and-a-half years of construction, the $375-millionRoyal Alberta Museumopenedto the publicat noon Wednesday.

Visitors weregreeted by anAlbertosaurusroaring through the lobby and a 100-year-old Edmonton biplane,props to our capital aviation history,suspended aboveand a giant bronze woollymammoth which tips the scales at over 3,600 pounds.

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"There's a sweet spot there; you can see everything unfold," saidexecutive director Chris Robinson.

"You can stand there and see that there's a gift shop and a cafe;there's the entrances to the natural history hall, the human history hall, the feature exhibit hall. So it begins in the lobby."

A sneak peek at the Royal Alberta Museum

6 years ago

Duration 1:13

Executive director Chris Robinson describes what the new Royal Alberta Museum will offer visitors.

Deeper inside, there's an air fart machine in the children's gallery which is sure to amuse.

'Something here for everybody'

That's where Kim Ceaser and her young daughter Megan spent most of their day. The massive spacewith floor-to- ceiling windows is a bright spot with something for kids of all ages.

"There's definitely something here foreverybody to enjoy," said Ceaser,one of the thousands ofpeople to secure a ticketonline for Wednesday's grand opening.

"I was able to get tickets for today and then I'm coming back with my whole family, because my boys are in school and my husband's working so we're coming back on Monday, all of us will be back."

Next door is the ever-popular bug gallery, which will get you up close to plenty of creepy-crawlers, all behind the safety of protective glass of course.

From butterfliesto the Mexicanredkneetarantula, the museum has collected invertebrates from all corners of the world.

"This is where we're trying to support and showoff and celebrate the little creatures that run the world," saidPeter Heule,live-animal supervisor at the museum.

"I'm able to get Malaysian beetles from Taiwanese suppliers," he said. "I mean Igot giant African millipedes from a fellow in the U.K., so where ever possible if these things are being bred in captivity, they don't need to be pulled out of the wild."

The human history hall tells more than a 150 stories including the rise of the Edmonton Oilers dynasty and the enduring love affair Albertans have with their pick-up trucks,Robinson said.

Edmonton architect Donna Clare designed the building.

"When my parents took me as a young girlto the then-Provincial Museum of Alberta, it showed me that Alberta was important and that its people people like me could dream and dream big," she recalls.

"It showed me that I could have courage and be proud of this province and it showed me that we had so much to learn from the Indigenous people."

The museum is steeped inthe cultures, languages and objects of the First Nations andMtispeople of Alberta and admission is free to Indigenous visitors"in the spirit of reconciliationand to honour thisunique relationship," Robinson said.

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Robinson said he was often asked over the last threeyearsif the wildlife dioramas would make the move to thenew downtown digs.

"We brought down eight of our greatest hits, if you will, and we've complemented them with nine new dioramas," he said.

Two whitetail deer battling during rut and a lynx zeroing in on a hare are justtwomoments frozen in timefeaturedatthe new Royal Alberta Museum.

You can see more from inside the new Royal Alberta Museum on Our Edmonton Saturday at 10 a.m., Sunday at noon and Thanksgiving Monday at 11 a.m. on CBC TV.