The Mastodon femur recently put back on display at the Museum of Natural History, was found in Middle River, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This bone has a big history!

Big Sandy

The huge bone was discovered by a Alexander McRae in 1834. Alexander's nick-name was "Big Sandy". We don't know if the Mastodon was a male or female, and it was found along the banks of the river, so Big Sandy might be a good nick-name for this historic femur.

Honeyman and the Moose

Map of Antigonish County, by David Honeyman, NSIS 1(4), 1867.

During the Museum's 150th anniversary, we are taking time to learn more about the Museum's history - including Dr. David Honeyman, the first Curator of the Nova Scotia Museum. As a paleontologist and geoscientist, I am particularly interested in Honeyman's work studying and promoting the geology of Nova Scotia. There are many stories to share (stay tuned), but it seems appropriate to start with his map.

19th Century Science and Culture

As we begin the journey of #FindingHoneyman, we start with a timeline of David Honeyman - the first Curator of the Nova Scotia Museum. This timeline provides an opportunity to discover links between between life events and historical contexts.

There’s something about a birthday that ends with a “0” that prompts reflection. These milestones feel like big accomplishments, moments to look at how far we’ve come while we take a pause before embarking on the next chapter.

As we end the 2018 Fort Saint Louis field season, a big thank you is extended to all who contributed to the excavation. Heather R. of AFN was with us to the end. A natural excavator, we hope she will join us next year!

We are in the last hours of site preparations before closing everything up. Visitors pop by to have one more look at excavations.

This wall was uncovered during the public dig 4 weeks ago. As anticipated, it continues from the wall we found last year.

We had many visitors to the site today. It was great to share our discoveries.

Two local public archaeology dig participants returned to the site to see how excavation has progressed in recent weeks

We had some bailing to do in the units this morning. A lot of rain the day before.

David Jones joined us today and worked in a unit with an unusual charcoal stain.

It's rainy here today so its a great opportunity to begin cleaning artifacts. The bags are stacking up!

We cleared the kitchen table at the crew house and set up wash basins and toothbrushes.

By: Dr. Tim Fedak, Acting Curator of Geology, Nova Scotia Museum

Nova Scotia is becoming known globally as an innovative centre in the use of 3D visualization for research and industrial projects. 

A small workshop was held at the Nova Scotia Museum in May that highlighted several 3D digitization projects.

A very foggy day on site today.

Thomasina uncovered a wonderful artifact today - a fragment of rolled trade copper.

We had a steady stream of visitors yesterday. The Acadian community is particularly interested in this early French archaeology site.

We had all the canopies up. It was a warm digging day.

We had help this weekend from Curator Adrian Morrison of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Lunenburg. Thanks for your hard work Adrian!

We are in a bit of a tropical paradise here in Port La Tour. Often the fog sits far off the site as you can see in this picture.

Visitors are regular. This morning folks from Liverpool came by to see an archaeological excavation and learn of our findings so far.

Another beautiful day at the archaeology site. We often see local fisherman at work in Port La Tour Harbour.

We began opeing up new units this week in areas where we found evidence of daily life at the fort in 2017.

A view of the archaeology project from the beach. The warm weather continued but a nice ocean breeze picked up today. Lovely!

Field technician Wesley Weatherbee joins colleagues from Saint Mary's University for an afternoon of digging.