The miraculous discovery of a whale bone during the excavation of a new subway line in downtown Toronto during the 1980s set the city all aflutter. The bone, a vertabrae, found in a landfill about 20 meters below the surface by backhoe operator Joe Resendes, a contractor working for the Toronto Transit Commission, did not belong there. There exsisted no recorded history of whales ever having made it to the city on Lake Ontario.

Could it be that the bone was pre-historic? Would it re-write the history of the Great Lakes? Did the greatest beast ever to live on earth swim in the shadows of the city? Was there a pre-historic ocean beneath the city? Did Lake Champlain come closer to Toronto than had been presumed up to this time? The questions and possibilities were endless. What other mysteries might the bone hold? It was difficult to tell who was more excited, the media, the general public or the scientific community.

The story died down and the whalebone disappeared into a drawer into the basement of the Royal Ontario Museum.

Until Now!