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Moncton Walrus

In 1871 workers on Sir Sanford Fleming’s construction crew found the near complete fossilized remains of a walrus near Moncton while building the Intercolonial Railway. It has produced a radiocarbon age of about 9,700 years old. The remains, known as the “Moncton Walrus” are now at Queen’s University in Kingston.

You might have noticed some fossils come with a special name attached, to indicate where they were found. It shows just how rare some of the fossil discoveries are. It is not unusual for these to be one-of-a-kind fossils. Less complete walrus fossils are almost common by comparison, there are a dozen in the New Brunswick Museum collection. Walrus fossils have been found all around the New Brunswick shoreline. They have been dredged from the seafloor and found in gravel pits that were once ancient shorelines. The oldest walrus fossil from New Brunswick is 12,700 years old from Passamaquoddy Bay while the youngest from Miramichi Bay is about 2,900 years old.