“Some people have all the luck!” wrote Michael Marano.

“That is amazing,” wrote Bobbi Jo Hodgdon.

McKinley believes the fossil beds are from the Devonian period, before fish, possibly as old as 250 million years, when this area was the site of a shallow Inland Sea.

He doesn't have a large indoor collection of the fossils he’s found, laughing that he doesn’t have the room.

“I try to keep the ones that are super interesting,” while leaving the majority for others to discover, he says.

“I’m just going to leave it like it is,” he says of his backyard find. “It’s been like that for millions of years.”

For those interested in doing their own fossil hunting, the University of Waterloo’s Earth Science’s Museum offers a list of Ontario fossil-collecting sites at uwaterloo.ca.

And the Royal Ontario Museum holds rock, gem, mineral, fossil and meteorite identification clinics six times a year for anyone who makes a similar find and isn’t quite sure what they have. The clinics are free and no appointment is needed. Visit rom.on.ca for more information.