Ice Age relic found by Alberta woman out walking her dogs
A chance discovery by an Edmonton area woman who was walking her dogs has turned out to be a massive fossilized bone that likely belonged to an Ice Age mammoth.
Stacy Long was walking out west of Devon last spring when she came across something jutting out of the river bank. That find has now been confirmed to be a fossil relic from the Ice Age, a potential scapula from an adult mammoth.
"On previous trips, there had been nothing," Long said. "This time, there was stuff coming out of the bank."
At first, she thought it was a large piece of wood. Long says she loves finding and collecting rocks for her garden.
"When I rinsed it off, it didn't look like wood anymore," she added. "So I thought, 'Oh, it might be something cool."
A closeup of the shoulder blade Stacy Long found while walking her dogs west of Devon, Alta. (CTV News Edmonton/Darcy Seaton)
She recalled how her husband was dubious at the time that she found anything exciting.
"I was a humanities teacher, not a science teacher," Long said. "He was just tired of me bringing rocks home for my flower bed."
"He was like, 'It's nothing,' but it ended up being something," she said with a laugh.
BUILDING THE PUZZLE OF ALBERTA'S HISTORY: RAM
She lugged the specimen home and sent a picture to the Royal Alberta Museum. After a series of emails, experts confirmed that Long had found a fossil that was just over a metre long. Long also came across a partial skull believed to be from a Bison antiquus from around the same era.
The pair of fossils Stacy Long found while walking her dogs west of Devon last spring (Supplied).
Katherine Bramble, a RAM paleontologist, said the bone is believed to be a mammoth shoulder blade that is 10,000 to 14,000 years old. It has since been added to the museum's research and reference collection.
"We will be learning more about it from comparing it to other specimens, other mammoth bones, not just from her but elsewhere and that can tell us more about maybe what species it is," Bramble told CTV News Edmonton.
Stacy Long (centre left) poses for a photo with Royal Alberta Museum staff, including paleontologist Katherine Bramble (far left) (Supplied).
What is now Alberta had two kinds of mammoths during the Ice Age, the larger but not as furry Columbian mammoth and the iconic woolly mammoth, Bramble explained.
Mastodons, which are more closely related to modern elephants, also lived in the area.
"It's too early to tell which species it could be," Bramble said.
For her, the find is exciting since mammoth and mastodon fossils are less common in Alberta when compared to dinosaur bones.
"What we have in the collections are teeth or tusk elements," she added. "We have a couple of arm or leg bones, but we don't have as much as we'd like to have."
Fossils, including the remains of plants and animals or traces of their activity, are protected in Alberta by the province's Historical Resources Act.
"By law, you are not allowed to dig for fossils if you find any," Bramble explained. "You need to have a permit for that."
"If you find something on the surface, you are allowed to collect it and take it home. Our preference would be that you get in contact with us and let us know what you found."
Royal Alberta Museum paleontologist Katherine Bramble (CTV News Edmonton/Darcy Seaton).
Locating a different fossil like the one Long came across is helpful in building the puzzle of Alberta's natural history, Bramble said, like providing more details about where mammoths were living.
This spring, the museum plans to send a team to further probe the area where Long located the mammoth specimen in the hopes of finding more fossils.
"It just grows the story that we've been building over time about how Alberta looked in the Ice Age," Bramble said.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
NEW Keeping these exotic pets is 'cruel' and 'dangerous,' Canadian animal advocates say
Canadian pet owners are finding companionship beyond dogs and cats. Tigers, alligators, scorpions and tarantulas are among some of the exotic pets they are keeping in private homes, which pose risks to public safety and animal welfare, advocates say.
NEW Life got in the way of one woman's reunion with her father, but a DNA test gained her a family
Anne Marie Cavner was the closest she'd ever been to meeting her biological father, but then life dealt her a blow. From an unexpected loss to a host of new relationships, a DNA test changed her life, and she doesn't regret a thing.
Doctors ask Liberal government to reconsider capital gains tax change
The Canadian Medical Association is asking the federal government to reconsider its proposed changes to capital gains taxation, arguing it will affect doctors' retirement savings.
How quietly promised law changes in the 2024 federal budget could impact your day-to-day life
The 2024 federal budget released last week includes numerous big spending promises that have garnered headlines. But, tucked into the 416-page document are also series of smaller items, such as promising to amend the law regarding infant formula and to force banks to label government rebates, that you may have missed.
Quebec farmers have been protesting since December. Is anyone listening?
Upset about high interest rates, growing paperwork and heavy regulatory burdens, protesting farmers have become a familiar sight across Quebec since December.
'Catch-and-kill' strategy to be a focus as testimony resumes in Trump hush money case
A veteran tabloid publisher was expected to return to the witness stand Tuesday in Donald Trump's historic hush money trial.
Quebec Health Department reports 28 cases of eye damage linked to solar eclipse
Quebec's Health Department says it has received 28 reports of eye damage related to the April 8 total solar eclipse that passed over southern parts of the province.
Psychologist becomes first person in Peru to die by euthanasia after fighting in court for years
A Peruvian psychologist who suffered from an incurable disease that weakened her muscles and had her confined to her bed for several years, died by euthanasia, her lawyer said Monday, becoming the first person in the country to obtain the right to die with medical assistance.
Diver pinned under water by an alligator figured he had choice. Lose his arm or lose his life
An alligator attacked a diver on April 15 as he surfaced from his dive, nearly out of air. His tank emptied with the gator's jaws crushing the arm he put up in defence.