Courtenay and District Museum

Local museum with the famous Comox Valley Elasmosaur fossil

The valley's mainstream history museum, housed in the old post office on Cliffe Avenue. The headline exhibit is the skeleton of a 12-metre elasmosaur — a Cretaceous marine reptile dug out of the riverbank in 1988 — but the local history galleries on the K'omoks First Nation, the coal era, and the Filberg lumber empire are all worth time.

The museum also runs guided fossil-hunting trips along the Puntledge River in summer; you can keep what you find.

things to do museum
A story
In 1988, two amateur fossil hunters walking the banks of the Puntledge River discovered the partial skeleton of an 80-million-year-old elasmosaur, a 12-metre long-necked marine reptile. It was the first complete elasmosaur found in British Columbia and is now mounted in the museum's main hall.