Dinosaurs roam SaskTel Centre

Watch above: Age-old dinosaurs set to entertain scores of youth in Saskatoon

SASKATOON – SaskTel Centre officially opened with a roar, going back to prehistoric times, as Walking with Dinosaurs is in Saskatoon until Oct. 5.

They look, move and sound like real dinosaurs. This is the closest people will come to the extinct creatures.

Fascinated with dinosaurs growing up, Frankie Cordero now gets to bring them to life.

“Their head is able to isolate and go up and down, side to side and twist; then there’s an intermediate neck, there’s the base of the neck movement and also their bodies twist, their bodies can go up and down and also tilt; and they have tail movement as well,” said Cordero, an auxiliary voodoo puppeteer for Walking with Dinosaurs .

It takes three operators to move one of the 20 life sized creatures and hundreds more to put on the show. Stephen Cooper spends upwards of 12 to 16 hours a day walking with dinosaurs.

“Even though we work with them every single day, even when we come in to do the checks in the morning you see these guys moving around and roaring and grunting you kind of slip back into believing that they are dinosaurs; the novelty hasn’t worn off,” said Cooper, who is head of creatures.

Watch below: bringing a Utah Raptor to life for Walking with Dinosaurs

The T-Rex was the most feared thousands of years ago and it may still be today.

“Maneuvering something of this size was pretty terrifying. We’re always checking and rechecking things,” said Cooper.

On his perch, Cordero oversees the action and hears the reaction.

“It’s nice to hear them react to the first time when one of the taller one comes in and of course when the T-Rex comes in that’s always a huge reaction,” said Cordero.

After doing this for three years, Cordero still stops and takes in what the world could have been like before we walked on it.