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 The "Mastodon Mud" Project The excitement of this find prompted many discussions among Museum staff. In one such discussion, the Museum Ethnologist, Ruth Whitehead, suggested that schools could help sift through the mud surrounding the bones, looking for evidence of plants, invertebrates, and other smaller vertebrates. The "Mastodon Mud" project was conceived in
December; by April 1992 about 4 tons of mud had been collected, recorded, and shipped to about
300 schools in plastic fish boxes supplied by Ropak Manufacturing of Springhill, Nova
Scotia. Some guides to possible finds in the mud were quickly written and sent out. The
students found many molluscs, wood samples (including some with beaver tooth marks) and
fragments of moss. The most outstanding finds included a complete juvenile turtle with
soft tissue attached, fish bones and teeth, a Caribou tooth (Caribou are no longer found
in Nova Scotia) and mole and muskrat teeth. These latter items are part of the Museum
collection, with the students and teachers named as discoverers.
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