Table of Contents
- The Bizarre Discovery Beneath Toronto
- How DNA Cracked the Case
- Meet the Woodland Caribou: Ghost of the Boreal Forest
- Why This Fossil Rewrites Urban History
- Paleontology Meets Public Transit
- Sources
The Bizarre Discovery Beneath Toronto
In 1976, during excavation for Toronto’s Spadina subway line, construction workers stumbled upon something no one expected: a partial deer-like skull buried 30 feet underground. At first glance, it looked like a caribou—but Toronto hasn’t been home to caribou in over a century.
The fossil was carefully boxed up and stored at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), where it sat largely forgotten for decades. Without clear context or modern tools, scientists couldn’t confirm whether it belonged to a woodland caribou, a white-tailed deer, or even an extinct Ice Age species.
How DNA Cracked the Case
Fast-forward to 2025. Armed with next-generation DNA sequencing and ancient protein analysis, a team from the University of Toronto and the ROM finally solved the mystery. The fossil—now nicknamed “Subway Sam”—belongs to Rangifer tarandus caribou, the woodland caribou.
“We extracted collagen peptides and mitochondrial DNA from a fragment of the petrous bone,” said Dr. Lena Cho, lead paleogeneticist on the project. “The genetic signature matched modern boreal caribou populations in northern Ontario and Quebec.”
Carbon dating placed the remains at roughly 1,200 years old—long after the last glaciers retreated but well before European settlement.
Meet the Woodland Caribou: Ghost of the Boreal Forest
Unlike their tundra-dwelling cousins, woodland caribou are solitary, forest-adapted animals that avoid open spaces. Once ranging as far south as New York and Michigan, they’ve vanished from most of their historic southern territory due to habitat loss and human encroachment.
Today, fewer than 150 woodland caribou remain in Ontario south of the James Bay corridor. Their presence in what is now downtown Toronto suggests a dramatically different ecosystem—dense boreal forest, clean wetlands, and minimal human disturbance.
Why This Fossil Rewrites Urban History
The discovery isn’t just a curiosity—it’s ecological evidence that southern Ontario’s landscape was far wilder and more biodiverse than previously assumed just a millennium ago.
“This fossil proves that caribou roamed areas we now consider urban cores,” said Dr. Marcus Bell, an environmental historian at York University. “It challenges our notion of ‘natural’ boundaries and reminds us that cities like Toronto sit atop layers of lost wilderness.”
For Indigenous communities, the find holds cultural resonance. The Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples have oral histories referencing caribou in southern regions, long dismissed by Western scholars as myth.
Paleontology Meets Public Transit
In a poetic twist, the ROM plans to display “Subway Sam” near an exhibit on urban archaeology—just blocks from where the fossil was unearthed. Meanwhile, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) officials are considering a commemorative plaque at Spadina Station.
“It’s a reminder that even in the heart of a concrete jungle, the past is never far beneath our feet,” said TTC historian Elena Ruiz.
Sources
Toronto’s Subway Deer Enigma Unmasked With DNA Analysis – The New York Times
