New Utah exhibit offers unique prospective on mammoth, other aspects of the ice age

Timothy Lee and other Natural History Museum of Utah staff closely watched as the race for Utah’s NHL team name unfolded — with a vested interest in one particular candidate.

Their hopes for the Mammoth then strengthened as the field narrowed to the final three at the start of this year.

“Once that happened and we saw that momentum, we were all crossing our fingers and hoping that Mammoth would be chosen,” said Lee, the museum’s director of exhibits.

Mammoth made sense, given the species’ long ties to Utah. And not only is there a massive adult Columbian mammoth replica on display at the museum, but Lee was hard at work preparing for the museum’s newest exhibit, “Mysteries of the Ice Ages.”

It’s an exhibit that features mammoths, among other things. The museum’s marketing team had even started placing tiny mammoth figurines throughout the building as a clue for visitors to guess what the facility’s next exhibit would be, months before the final announcement was made.

So when the hockey club’s announcement came down last month, museum staff were elated.

“We are hopeful that we can make connections and share stories of natural history, Utah’s amazing geologic history, and showcase science and what makes Utah so amazing,” he told KSL.com on Friday, standing a few feet from a display explaining the differences between mammoths and modern-day elephants.

“It’s going to be a global brand, so we’re really excited about the opportunity,” Lee added.

“Mysteries of the Ice Ages,” which opens to visitors on the third floor on Saturday, offers plenty of information about mammoths. It also provides many relevant ties beyond the state’s new prehistoric mascot.

It’s a traveling exhibit with over 120 items on loan from the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada. It features fossils and replicas of the animals that roamed the earth as far back as 80,000 years ago, such as muskoxen, caribou, wolves, cave bears and mastodon, the mammoth’s prehistoric cousin. There are also displays and artifacts from Neanderthals and early humans, explaining how they adapted to the cold.

A handful of interactive options also demonstrate how the last ice age formed and ultimately shaped geography across the world, which is especially relevant in Utah. Earth, Lee explained, is still technically in an ice age because of the ice that exists on its two poles, and the exhibit explores the potential impacts as those recede.

It ends with climate solutions and hope for the future, tying into another exhibit that the Natural History Museum of Utah opened in 2023. Having ties to exhibits on other floors of the building — like “Past Worlds” and “A Climate of Hope” — is ultimately why Lee booked this new exhibit two years ago, long before Utah even had an NHL team.

However, hosting a traveling exhibit from another country hasn’t come without some unexpected challenges. A few of the artifacts, including some taxidermy animals and ancient tools made of ivory, have yet to arrive. Those are expected to be installed in the coming weeks as the museum clears international regulations.

The exhibit will remain at the museum through Jan. 4, 2026, before another traveling exhibit takes its place. That gives Utahns plenty of time to learn more about the state’s newest mascot, as well as other aspects of the ice age that make Utah what it is today.

That’s ultimately what museum curators hope visitors will take away from the new exhibit. They believe that it could provide a new perspective on how the cold made the state into what it is now.

“The cold is so much of our culture today that we have something to protect,” Lee said. “I hope they leave with an enjoyment of everything that Utah has to offer: an understanding that ice and cold shaped Utah.”