Alberta man discovers prehistoric mammoth tusk in yard on Saddle Lake Cree Nation

'I was just blown away!' Jarrod Cardinal said about finding the woolly mammoth tusk. 'Who digs a hole in the ground and finds something like that?'

A man from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, east of Edmonton, made the discovery of a lifetime while working on a project in his yard.

Jarrod Cardinal was digging a hole for a project in his yard — until his shovel struck a hard object roughly six feet in the ground.

“I didn’t really know what is was at first,” Jarrod Cardinal said, not thinking much of it. “It was getting dark — I took it out of the dirt and threw it to the side.”

He didn’t get a closer look until the next day.

“I thought it was wood at first. I was just puzzled by it. I didn’t know what it was, I thought maybe this is a tusk or something,” Cardinal said.

“We’re like, ‘What is a tusk doing here?'” said Cardinal’s sister Carol Buffalo, who was there when he found the object.

Pictures of the mystery find were sent to a paleontologist at the University of Alberta. Not only is it old — but it comes from an animal you only see or hear about in museums.

“An expert verified and they told us it was a mammoth tusk. He’s an expert in that field and right away he said it was authentic,” Cardinal said.