I have to admit that until this morning I had no idea there was more than one type of mammoth. When I heard the word ‘mammoth’ I’ve always thought of the wooly mammoth — like the 30,000-year-old specimen discovered this past summer frozen in the Yukon’s permafrost. However, watching this episode of California’s Gold, originally aired in November 2004, I learned that it was Columbian mammoths that lived in the California region. Those are the mammoths famously trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits (which I’ve never visited, by the way). This adventure also takes Huell to one of my favorite places in California, the Sonoma coast. And from what Huell finds there, it seems like the mammoths liked to spend time there as well!

Huell Howser visits two locations to learn about California’s Ice Age history. At the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles and at Sonoma Coast State Beach the Columbian Mammoths that once roamed our state come to life.

(Click on the linked image below to see the video.)