Decades after being discovered by a 12-year-old boy along the banks of the Glenmore Reservoir, the remains of ‘Charlie the Bison’ have made their way to the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton.

The nearly complete, 4,600-year-old bison skeleton has been a fixture of the Sunlife Plaza atrium in downtown Calgary for years following its excavation by 12-year-old Nicholas Jones and his two best friends in 1973. The provincial government permitted the excavation and the process was conducted under the watch of Nicholas’ father.

“It was exciting times because for three years we learned every bone in the human body from this experience,” recalled Nicholas Jones. “We learned geology. We learned paleontology. There was no internet back then so we wrote to all of the paleontologists around the world asking the what to do (and) how to preserve it.”

The skeleton, named Charlie by the children, was preserved in boxes for more than 20 years before Jones noticed plans to renovate the atrium of Sunlife Plaza. Jones’ startup art studio submitted a proposal and was selected to create an art installation he called ‘Shelter From The Storm’ that displayed Charlie’s skeleton encased in a makeshift ice block.

After 22 years in the lobby of the building, the bison has relocated to Edmonton where paleontologists will study its remains before exhibiting the skeleton within the museum.

Charlie was a unique find as ancient wood bison were a source of food for the First Nations People and their skeletons are seldom discovered intact.

"A lot of the specimens from this time frame are from archaeological sites and they tend to be more fragmented, " said Christina Barron-Ortiz, assistant curator at the Royal Alberta Museum. "They tend to be more fragmented, nothing as complete as what we see here with Charlie."

With files from CTV's Bill Macfarlane