Local interest is growing in Dawson City, Yukon, as the community marks the 10th anniversary year of the 2016 discovery of a perfectly preserved, 57,000‑year‑old wolf pup named Zhùr. Found in July 2016 at a site on Last Chance Creek — a tributary in the Klondike goldfields about 30 km south of Dawson City — the pup is the most complete Pleistocene gray wolf specimen (a mummified pup) known to date, with hair and skin still intact after being frozen in permafrost since the Ice Age.
Gold miner Neil Loveless first spotted the pup in July 2016 while using high‑pressure water (a mining technique known as hydraulic stripping) to clear frozen mud at a site near Last Chance Creek. Scientists with the Yukon Government and the research team led by Dr. Julie Meachen and Yukon palaeontologist Dr. Grant Zazula determined the pup was about seven weeks old when her den collapsed, which effectively buried and “freeze‑dried” her remains and prevented decay for millennia.
The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation gave the pup the Hän name Zhùr, meaning “wolf,” and oversaw a blessing ceremony in Dawson City shortly after the discovery. Community leaders say the find provides a deep connection to their traditional territory and culture — a connection made more relevant as the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in have secured nearly $25 million in federal funding for a new heritage complex in Dawson City that will expand cultural programming and exhibits.
Zhùr is on display at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse. Scientific analyses reported in media coverage and the peer‑reviewed study indicate chemical and isotopic evidence from her tissues and teeth showed her last meals included aquatic life, most likely salmon. The discovery has also drawn renewed attention to the region following the inscription of the Tr’ondëk‑Klondike on the UNESCO World Heritage List in September 2023, which highlights the global significance of the Klondike landscape and its cultural history.
