Alberta’s stuffed gopher museum closes as owners seek new burrow

A quirky Alberta roadside attraction that has delighted travellers for decades with its stuffed rodents in tiny costumes is closed until further notice.

The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum, located in Torrington, a hamlet about 120 kilometres north of Calgary, made the announcement online earlier this week.

Laural Kurta, museum director, said she was forced to close the doors because the two historical buildings that house the exhibits need to be replaced.

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“We have done every patch repair, staple, spackle, everything we could possibly do,” Kurta said in an interview Tuesday.

The collection needs to be heat and humidity controlled because of the taxidermy, and Kurta said the buildings can no longer sustain it.

“Nobody thought this place would last more than five years,” she said. “The museum has now been open for 30, and it’s busier than ever.”

The museum closed its doors last Tuesday. It was in a former century-old schoolhouse joined by a small hallway to a grain elevator office.

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It opened in 1996 and features stuffed Richardson’s ground squirrels, commonly called gophers in Western Canada, in dioramas dressed in costumes.

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There’s a rodent in an Edmonton Oilers jersey playing hockey, a rodent blacksmith hammering on an anvil, a Mountie gopher, a bank robber gopher, a three-gopher musical and medal-winning rodents on the Olympic dais.

Kurta’s parents helped set up the museum and her mother ran it for 24 years until she fell ill. A group of retired seniors volunteered their time to run the museum until the COVID-19 pandemic when Kurta then took over.

The museum was launched with a provincial startup grant but has been self-sufficient since, relying on admission fees by donation.

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The community has started an online fundraiser to build a new museum and hopefully keep it in Torrington.