Saskatchewan, while known as the land of the living skies, was also once a land of living seas millions of years ago. Two plumbers recently found a piece of that prehistoric past on Peepeekisis Cree Nation. Justin Ironquill and his brother Tyson were digging a waterline when they came across what paleontologists would call a diamond in the rough, 13-feet underground. “It was an ordinary day doing our job, digging a new subdivision townsite in there,” Justin said. “And my brother was down in the hole by himself. And finally, after picking thousands of rocks out there, he finally found one with some fossils in it. And I was in the excavator and stopped and checked it out. And sure enough, he was telling the truth.” Inside the rock, the crew discovered roughly 20 small, seashell impressions that were each roughly the size of a quarter. According to Dr. Ryan Mckellar, the Curator of Paleontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, the fossils were brachiopods, which is an ancient, shelled sea creature that once covered the ocean floor. The small shells look similar to clams but are classified as an entirely group of animals. The fossils tell a story that dates back nearly half a billion years and eventually made their way to the Prairies roughly 14,000 years ago. The glaciers that began sweeping across Northern Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan brought with them large pieces of limestone that were already filled with the ancient fossils. Those fossils found on Peepeekisis date back to about 400–450 million years ago, to a time when Saskatchewan was covered with a shallow sea and prehistoric aquatic life forms. “When we see fossils that are like this, we know they come from a time before even dinosaurs were on the landscape,” McKellar said. Paleontologists often use brachiopods as bookmarks to determine the age of rock beds. While paleontologists and archeologists study these fossils to learn about the province’s history and ancient oceans and history, it was something Justin has never come across before in his experience digging on Peepeekisis. “I found some nice little rocks and bones before. But nothing like this before. Not no seashells that are millions of years old,” he said. “It’s something cool to see.” From the dirt on the construction site, to uncovering pieces of Saskatchewan’s ancient past, it goes to show the exciting pieces of history that live just below our feet.
