You never know what you might find when you go out for a walk.
Back in 1993, Oliver Johnson was helping his brother hunt antelope on the south shore of Lake Diefenbaker when he discovered what appeared to be fossil bones.
He said he immediately recognized they were ancient bones and he took away all the ones, which were not broken.
Johnson sent them to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM) with another brother and excavations began in 1995.
A 10-metre long marine reptile called a tylosaur from the age of the dinosaurs was revealed.
A replica is now on display at the Western Development Museum (WDM) in Moose Jaw. The tylosaur is nicknamed Omaciw, which is the Cree word for hunter.
Johnson was at the official opening on Thursday.
“You just cannot visualize until you see it how impressive it is,” he said.
“I did not know what but I knew right away they were old bones and something that lived in the ocean because it was in a crustaceous shell.
“It was some of the finger ones like knuckles and some of the vertebrae. It filled about a shoe box.
“It was exciting and I did a little bragging about it,” he said.
Read more in a future Times-Herald edition.
