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Torrington Gopher Hole Museum. Photo by Mack Male on

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Gopher Hole Museum, Torrington, Alberta

The Torrington Gopher Museum is sometimes known as the world-famous Gopher Hole Museum located in Torrington, Alberta.

Torrington Gopher Hole Museum features a stuffed gopher (Richardson’s Ground squirrel) posed to resemble the townspeople in 44 scenes.

The entire museum facility consists of mini-scenes of taxidermied gophers enjoying human life and wearing human clothes.

It only cost $2 to enter the museum. The little scene is placed inside small boxes, which are placed all over the rooms.

The museum was built to help fund small businesses that once dotted the town.

The museum started as a village and turned into a vanity project as a useful thing for the pest problem.

Some gophers have been designed to resemble people who once worked in the local business.

Here are the top 10 interesting facts about Gopher Hole Museum.

1. The museum is dedicated to stuffed Richard鈥檚 ground squirrels

Stuffed Squirrel. Photo by eileenmak on

The museum has 77 stuffed gophers posed to resemble townspeople’s attribution of human traits, emotions, non-human entities, or intentions in 44 scenes.

Richards ground squirrel is a north American grounded squirrel in the genus Urocitelles. The squirrels were named after Scottish naturalist Sir John Richardson.

The replica of the Richardson ground squirrel depicts gophers as waterfowl, hunters, firefighters, cosmetologist pool players, bank robbers, priests, and first nation people, among many others.

2. The museum was featured in film

The museum is profiled in Chelsea McMullan鈥檚 2015 documentary film world famous gopher hole museum.

Chelsea McMullan is a Canadian documentary filmmaker. This film is centered on the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington, Alberta.

The film premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film gained fame and was shortlisted for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Short Documentary at the 4th Canadian screen awards.

3. The gophers at the museum are taxidermized

Stuffed gophers wearing props. Photo by Eileenmak on

Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal body via mounting or stuffing for the purpose of display.

During the gopher hole museum construction, taxidermists ( person who practices taxidermy) were hired to cater to the required gopher displays.

Each gopher is decked out in clothing and props made either by hand or bought at local hobby shops.

The taxidermist went above and beyond, making the dioramas as accurate and lifelike as possible. They used real sheep manure( sealed with a special plastic bag.

4. Where the idea for the museum came from?

In the mid-1990s Torrington had a gopher problem. The gopher was too many and wasn鈥檛 going away.

One of the local residents jokingly suggested that they should just stuff the gophers and put them on display.

The idea was put in place, and the museum was built and opened in 1996. Over 10,000 people came to visit the year it was opened.

5. The museum is managed by the local women

The women came up with the idea of stuffing the gophers, the clothes to be put on the gophers and built the Dimora鈥檚 run at the museum.

The women manage the museum tours and upkeep. This created an opportunity for the women to flex their quirky, creative muscles.

6. The museum put the town on the map as a tourist destination

Torrington Gopher Hole Museum. Photo by Mack Male on

At one time, the government of Alberta gave a $ 9,000 grant to Torrington to create a tourist attraction in the small community.

The establishment of the Gopher Hole Museum helped make the town famous and put it on the map.

In its first year of establishment, it received 10,000 visitors and an average of about 5,000 visitors during the four months it opened.

The museum upholds traditional values even as it offers a self-reflective critique of the cultural production in which it participates, from the convention of natural history and heritage museum to the nostalgic creation of childhood life.

7. Animal right group protested about the exhibit

After the museum was opened, an animal rights group protested the exhibit’s use of gopher corpses.

The group urged the asked for the use of prefabricated models instead. The museum Curator Dianno Kurta and other museum organizers responded with a postcard telling the group to 鈥済et stuffed.鈥�

The resulting controversy went global in the media attracting letters of both opposition and support from as far away as Germany and the UK.

The converse drew thousands of visitors to the museum making the story a success and profitable.

8. The future of the Torrington Gopher museum

When the museum first opened, it had 13 displays and was planned to last for only five years. Twenty five years later, visitors are still coming.

There is a world map in the museum where all visitors pin to mark how far they have traveled to visit the museum.

Some displays rotated, with many people being distraught to discover their favorite display had been taken down.

The museum structure was an old historic schoolhouse that was 100 years old. The increasing popularity of gophers has inspired talks of not only moving but possibly expanding.

Visitors come from across the world to this hole-in-the-ground destination, leaving with a new appreciation for how an idea so big could fit into construction so small.

9. The Gopher Hole Museum is a treasure

Torrington Gopher Hole Museum gopher display. Photo by Mack Male on

The museum is well maintained and a fun little stop for family trips or road trips.

The puns for each little diorama are excellent, and the gift shop and facility are clean and cute.

If you want to visit a strange little tourist stop that has some unusual history, gophers are the best for you.

The town of Torrington has all of its fire hydrants painted like the little gophers and they are very cute.

10. The town is full of gophers

Torrington is home to less than 200 residents, with 11 fire hydrates painted to look like gophers. The town has a giant statue of Clem .T. GoFar, which was established in 1991.