Calgary 
While on the hunt for gold within Klondike gold fields within Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Traditional Territory, miners from Treadstone Mining found something far rarer: a near-complete, mummified baby woolly mammoth.
Credit: Government of Yukon
This discovery was made on June 21, 2022, when miners uncovered the frozen woolly mammoth while excavating through the permafrost.
Although the Yukon is known for its fossil record of ice age animals, mummified animals are incredibly rare, making this a significant discovery for the whole scientific community.
Credit: Government of Yukon
Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Elders named the mammoth calf Nun cho ga, meaning “big baby animal” in the Hän language.
This is the most complete mummified mammoth found in North America. Mummified remains — head, trunk, and left forelimb — of a woolly mammoth calf named Effie, were found in 1948 in Fairbanks Creek in Alaska.
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Believed to be female, Nun cho ga would have died during the ice age, more than 30,000 years ago, says geologists from the Yukon Geological Survey and the University of Calgary who recovered the frozen mammoth on site.
Credit: Yukon Minister of Tourism and Culture Ranj Pillai/Twitter
Yukon Paleontologist Dr. Grant Zazula said in a statement, “As an ice age palaeontologist, it has been one of my life long dreams to come face to face with a real woolly mammoth. That dream came true today. Nun cho ga is beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world. I am excited to get to know her more.”
