Torrington Gopher Hole Museum

In Torrington, Alberta, this unusual museum became the town's best-known attraction by displaying seventy-seven stuffed Richardson's ground squirrels in forty-four dioramas that portray miniature community life and comic scenes. It emerged after railway service ended and the grain elevators closed, when residents sought a tourism draw and turned a joking idea into a community-built project. Housed in a one-room rural schoolhouse and a former grain elevator office joined into a single building, the museum opened in 1996 and quickly drew large crowds and attention beyond Alberta. Despite protests and criticism, it became a fixture of offbeat Canadian tourism through local volunteer effort, prairie humor, and persistence.

Alberta · Canada