The single best Dinosaur party on the planet…

Named Montana’s Event of the Year by the Office of Tourism and Business Development, the Annual Dino Shindig takes place at the end of July. Visitors travel to the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka, Montana from all over the world to hear lectures from leading paleontologists, partake in kids activities, and dance the night away.

Alumni of the 8th grade PALEOS trip are invited to return to the field and travel with our team to Ekalaka, Montana for the annual shindig event. This next-step trip is for students who are interested in attending lectures from real paleontologists, making connections and building an understanding of the academic community currently studying North America’s last dinosaurs.

We will meet participants at the airport in Rapid City, South Dakota on Tuesday, July 23 and go straight to the Zerbst Ranch fossil sites and Paleopark to continue ongoing fieldwork. After two days of re-visiting localities from the 2017 and 2018 8th grade PALEOS trips we will head North to Ekalaka, Montana where we will be volunteering as staff members with the Carter County Museum and working behind the scenes at the Shindig event. On Sunday after the event we will return to the Rapid City Airport in the early afternoon.

Ekalaka, MT

Part of the Montana Dinosaur Trail, this town of 332 people boasts the oldest dinosaur museum in the state, The Carter County Museum. Their Annual Field-Season Party is a not-to be missed event for any dinosaur enthusiast.


The Depth of Fieldwork Project

We love volunteering and getting involved at the Carter County Museum! In 2017 we had a blast photographing the guest lecturers at the Shindig event. Using technology contemporary to the founding of this historic museum, we made tin-type portraits of some of the most impressive academic paleontologists in the world. The video below explains the 2017 project and the photo link at the bottom directs to the individual portraits and biographies for each guest lecturer.

Click this Photo link for Tin Type portraits and Biographical information for 2017 Dinosaur Shindig Guest Lecturers