to Toronto; other locales which had been considered to host the show were Calgary, Ottawa, and Winnipeg. The government of Alberta contributed $1.94 million CAD towards the Edmonton portion of the tour. Ultimately the event was delayed again and went forward in 1993, premiering in Edmonton before travelling to Toronto. The show made its international debut in Osaka in 1994 and then appeared in Singapore and Vancouver in 1995 before moving on to Sydney for the summer of 1996–1997. The show also appeared in Dallas, Milwaukee, and Winnipeg. In 1997 the Ex Terra Foundation ended the tour and sold many of its assets to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Of the eleven cities suggested as venues by a 1989 consultation with the Harrison Price Company, only Dallas and Toronto ever hosted the show. The opening of the Edmonton show was attended by Ralph Klein, Premier of Alberta; Donald H. Sparrow, Minister of Economic Development and Tourism; Dianne Mirosh, Minister of Innovation and Science; and Tom Musgrove, MLA for the Bow River electoral district. Mirosh and Musgrove were critical of the show, saying it lacked sufficient recognition for Dinosaur Provincial Park's contributions to palaeontology. The show was also derided as "Bedrock meets Epcot" by critics as it toured Canada. However, Deputy Premier Ken Kowalski repeatedly defended the show and deemed it a success. During an October 1993 meeting of the Alberta Legislative Assembly, Kowalski deemed dinosaurs one of Alberta's primary tourist attractions: Most of the reviews that are done clearly indicate that people are fascinated by three things in the province of Alberta. They're fascinated by RCMP with red serge coats, they're fascinated by the Rocky Mountains, and they're absolutely fascinated by dinosaurs. There's something international about a dinosaur, and of course Alberta is really the great home of the dinosaur. Features Fossils featured prominently in the tour included samples from a Centrosaurus bonebed, a Daspletosaurus skull, a well-preserved ornithomimid, a nearly-complete Prosaurolophus skeleton, a stone slab containing twelve juvenile Pinacosaurus, a Mamenchisaurus skeleton, and the Tyrannosaurus skeleton known as "Black Beauty". A number of artistic recreations were prepared for the tour, including a life-size Albertosaurus sculpture created by Canadian palaeoartist Brian Cooley. Many of the sculptures and other palaeoart used in the tour were acquired by the Royal Tyrrell Museum in 1997, and have been periodically reused by the museum and other touring exhibitions. The exhibition was set up in each