The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (CFDC) has added another feather to its cap.
Last Thursday, the Morden museum took home the award for Marketing Campaign of the Year at the fourth annual Tourism Awards organized by Travel Manitoba.
The honour came in recognition of CFDC’s work in promoting its Fossil Dig Adventure Tour, which gives visitors the opportunity to help paleontologists unearth 83-million-year-old fossils at its dig site in the Pembina Escarpment.
The museum really ramped up its marketing efforts for this unique experience during the 2025 dig season, shared executive director Adolfo Cuetara.
“So this award is huge for us,” he said. “It’s recognition of all the effort that we did last year.
“We are really honoured because there’s so many incredible tourism businesses in Manitoba, so to be selected as the best between all of them, that’s incredible.”
Behind-the-scenes videos showcasing the dig tours racked up tens of thousands of views last summer, and the museum made national news for discoveries dug out by visitors. CFDC also signed a new agreement with travel company GetyourGuide to help it attract even more people to the tours.
“Last year we had more than double the amount of visitors than the year before,” Cuetara shared. “And especially from outside the country—we have visitors coming from Australia, New Zealand England.”
Bookings are already staring to fill up for the 2026 season, which Cuetara predicts will see even more growth.
“We have a lot of room to improve in the future,” he said, noting they’re limited to just 12 seats per tour due to the size of the current transport vehicle, but increased interest could see them find ways to boost those numbers with more vehicles or dig days.
The tours give people the chance to get truly hands-on with prehistory.
“They are actually digging up a skeleton. It’s not like they’re just looking for fossils in a field,” Cuetara said. “They are helping us in a professionally established dig site to really dig out most of the skeleton. So every visitor is uncovering a new vertebra, a new tooth, a new limb element.
“We are very lucky to own those acres in the escarpment that are so rich in fossils.”
