Experience: I unearthed a mammoth from the ice age

I had only been working as a gold miner for 30 days. The company I was employed by had begun its second season mining in a remote area of Canada.

I had been operating various machines as I learned the ropes, and early in the afternoon of 21 June this year I was using an excavator with a ripper attachment.

The cut I was working in was surrounded by pine forests, and had been dug down to about 60 feet below the treeline. I pulled a chunk from the frozen bank of earth that I thought was a skull. Like other members of the crew, I was trained to remove the skeletons of animals found in the area. I called my boss because he was on site. I told you to come down. I believe I have found a body.

Brian wanted to know if it was human.

I thought it might be a buffalo. We thought we were dealing with a few bones, but when I looked closer, I saw something different. I removed some of the black muck from the head and found that it was more than a skull. I picked up the radio again.

I thought it was a tiny elephant. I believe it is a baby mammoth.

I was told by Brian to dig out the corpse and bring it to camp. I used the ripper attachment to find the back legs and rump of the mammoth, after I wondered if there was more to discover. The body was about 6in in length.

Brian and I examined the remains further after I loaded them into an excavator bucket. He was surprised by how well preserved the mammoth was. It looked like it could have died the week before, and you could see the skin and pads on it's feet, as well as the hair on it's body.

Grant Zazula promised to scramble a field crew as soon as possible. We were told to cover our find with blankets and tarp. The geological survey team was excited when they got there. They were able to find more hair from the mammoth and preserved greenery at the site of the discovery. We found out that the body was that of a female, at least 30,000 years old, and that it was a month old.

The world's oldest pot plant is looked after by me.

She was packed with ice so that she could be stored in a freezer for two hours so that she wouldn't get cold. She left the site on the back of a truck, and the storm blew up out of the blue. We were hit with hailstones the size of golf balls while rain was coming in sideways. Brian had to stop the entire operation. It was similar to a scene from a movie, as if we had released something more than just the mammoth.

It wasn't until a few days later that I realized how important the discovery was. I discovered the most complete and best-preserved mummified woolly mammoth in North America, even though we knew it was a rare find.

In their Hn language, the mammoth calf Nun cho ga means "big animal baby". I believe she will stay on the traditional territory where she was found.

I am focused on mining for gold, but always aware of what else I may find. Maybe Nun cho ga's mom is in there.

Chris was told as well.

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