"Moose Jaw Buried in the river gravel of the Ikpikpuk River, North Slope, Alaska...as hundreds of fossils are discovered every day along the banks and in the river as it flows north to the Arctic Ocean. This jaw section exhibits two perforations made by the canine teeth of ancient bear along with being extensively chewed then frozen in permafrost for at least ten thousand years.  This region is rich in Pleistocene fossils and amber discovered more towards the mouth of the Colville River.  At one expedition I had discovered dozens of amber artifacts along the beach area out from the mouth of this beautiful Colville delta."

"She started up the 'slope of the mountain' in front of me. The Arctic wind moved her fur around like a wheat field.  She raised her head and looked at me a few yards away.  I told her she was beautiful...she already knew"

     It was a young walrus, a bull that swam with it's herd in the Bering Sea, along the coast of Siberia and back around the Chukchi Sea.  Hauling out on drift ice and sleeping along the others in a winter's half sun.  It drifted close and silent as it neared the ice flow...the wind was 19 knots and perfect for an approach by an ancient Inuit hunter.  Silence followed the harpoon as it struck...the herd awakened to panic and an insuring rush to the edge of the ice flow to dive deep into the sea, except the young bull, he wavered and was held fast by the hunter and then his demise.  The end began an interesting rebirth in their village.  The tusk of the young bull walrus was carved into a doll amulet, and given to a child.  The doll was given a name along with a place in a special pouch of seal skin and beads., and after many generations, as it then became a family member, it had become lost to an unknown family tragedy, the house was lost and buried by others in the village...1200 years later the sea surged and washed away the ancient house and it's possessions emptied on the sand...discovered by a "Koyuk" man as the tide drained away following a surge from a storm." 

"Cold rain in July, mountain breezes bring in fog and low clouds...ghostly and moving through the ground level fireweed.  The Muskox, rises from his bed in the tundra and moves back towards the foothills, where the herd rests just below tree line, taking grasses and leaving behind 'last year's' wool hanging in the willows."

"Left Nome, Alaska during a most beautiful day.  Even the Arctic Tern has not yet finished their stay on the beaches.  The winds slowed and the many days of rain had begun to dry.  I left certain treasures as yet collected and other treasure that I easily can carry."

"While on a walk on a beach with an overview of the Bering Sea, I had friends keep an eye on me in the event I got too close to their nest.  "Arctic Terns at their best!"

"East of Nome, Alaska, on a walk, I stop to take a drink of water and enjoy the amazing weather and out from the tundra came two bull Muskox facing off in a mock battle.  Oblivious to my presence, and focused on their bout, I was happy to catch the photo...I was very close and going back today as of this writing, July 7, 2010."

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"They came home with me from their place on the tundra"  "My cabin in the woods, Fairbanks, Alaska."  "They tell stories when glaciers were everywhere, and men wore 'parkas' of 'Short Face' bear fur, walked in trails of the 'Mammoth' whom drank from rivers with such heights that they could see into dreams.  I walk in the same trails, even though the tracks of the Mammoth have stepped into the trails of distance."

"From the Clay to Amulet"

"Buried in the clay, washed by summer rain and cleaned to a glow."  "Mammoth tusk, darkened by storms and elements, disguised as drift-wood, ignored by caribou and scented by a passing wolf.  "Low tide, just inches to show it to me, in my hand...then drafted to my work...benevolently."

"He walks towards my place, nearby.  The winds stopped and now a gentle breeze in my face and I drink it in.  His foot-fall is rhythmic and steady as he walks into my view.  I move from one foot to another and he gains the distance in each track.  I speak in a tone and listens, he looks to me and climbs, looks back and vanishes.  He is gone, but the breeze moves him along a new trail.  The wind returns now and I stand in gravel...my visit."

"Tired, ill from chaos and newly arrived to my river in the Arctic.  "Crossing, the same place, in the river to set camp.  The plane's engines still a roar in the distance as my head pleads for rest.  The tent now up and gear stowed as I fill my pan to boil.  "Out of my vision is a Mammoth tusk near my tracks in the river...gift to my arrival...my success"

"Close"

"Close, and colorful, with common place.  Even with this, is no sound, the slight ripples in the water, breathing the two of us...close."  Another mystery of outcome, in motion, no waiting.  The river flows north and he tracks south, next to me.  Saying something to end the mystery or 'salute' the moment as we pass."

    "Death, is a very strange term, it has habit with loss and fear, set aside to warrant distraction of it's true meaning and deemed tragic.  To the cycle of breath and the walk, as to nourish in fare, then death be renamed, as I journey on, in my 'solo' drift, I name death as a river ceases and flowers start.  I welcome the journey across the tundra, to take sense of it, as I am of it, welcomed by it.  The length of it and the sky above it, keep me.  It does now as I live in smallest of it.  It continues in my change as the ice comes and the berries are dried, I too enter the season, my trail will return to me."

"Within the leaf, the flower and the spines of support.  As the wind speeds overhead it is just a breeze in the cover.  When we can hear this, it is laughter, a certain quality of performance and dance.  As we lie down amongst them, we all come to know that we too are nature, as leaf, flower and spine for support.  As our time in the leaf, then as a creature to view at rest, soon, we then will fly...taking it all with us"

"Facing the traffic, and onslaught of a crowd is normal and a daily routine for people of this world.  To exist within a flower, surrounded in a certain color and translucence, warm and fragrant.  The rain in it's own lens of light changing in the wind.  Walking in sound drafted by cracking surf and rainbows of winking sun beams as the flock of Sandhill cranes bank on the offshores lost in the mists.  I turn now to my tent of yellow with my warm bed out of the weather and lean down to team with a blueberry, it's own nature supported in green.  To the sand it shifts to the lee and sprays it's quartz in layers.  A char moves in rhythm to the swells that lead to my port.  It is song, the mode of it, it is where we ...belong."

"Woolly Mammoth Ivory"  discovered on my walks...to the Arctic, is my choice of medium for my sculpture enterprise.   I discover this wonderful ancient ivory in the beach sand...on river banks...gravel bars...and ancient  'Ice Age' lakes and ponds that to this day still harbors bone and tusks of the extinct Mammoth."  "I sculpture motifs of ancient stories of the 'Inuit' passed down by verbal record, deciphered in my endeavor, such as this 'Shaman Inuit' swimming with the walrus to 'sing out' their location to the hunters."

"Woolly Mammoth Tusk"  "Discovered in ten feet of  icy water"  "Rivers that have been draining melt water and rain to the Arctic Ocean for unrecorded  thousands of years as the surrounding ground lie permanently frozen, preserving ivories and bones in organic condition"

"When we walked into the country...it was this country we lived in...very few people existed 40,000 years distant and the 'land' was clear and in 'Ice Age' condition.  "We could walk for weeks in any direction and not meet another person...when we came into a camp or village it was a welcoming encounter with an audience of listeners of stories, feasting and followed by trade...of  Mammoth  Ivory carvings and other 'found' treasures"

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"Solo"  "Two months by waterway in a river that runs north to the Arctic Ocean, tracks of Caribou all around, with bears and wolves making their way in the shadows...a good camp"

"To walk out from this river in the Arctic, at least for the ancient nomads that lived here forty thousand years ago in northern Alaska, was an endeavor that took generations to complete.  To constantly live in the out-of-doors with just a few in the family, and a small number of  total friends in a subsistence life-style, the gatherings of a successful hunting, discovering an amber stone for an ornament and to watch a bull Mammoth walk the ridge line...just over there"

"River of ancient ivory"  'Not just floating down a slow river, solo, but exploring it, searching under the surface for signs of  'color' gold and oranges to indicate ivory, sometimes quite deep in 'ice cold' clear 

water."  "Occasional fish,  fan tailing,  Arctic Char, Grayling and Northern Pike...and a nice Woolly Mammoth Tusk buried in gravel just under the boat."

"Sculpture from my studio of  'Shaman'  Indians 'singing' the 'Bear' song, Athabaskan, interior Alaska...sculpted from 'Woolly Mammoth Ivory' discovered in the Bering Sea."

"Woolly Mammoth Tooth as it is discovered in an Arctic river, Alaska...some of these small rivers drain out their water in late July and becomes very shallow and as a result, is much easier to 'spot' fossils in the bed."

"Woolly Mammoth Tusk, Immature Bull, Arctic Alaska, discovered twenty miles from the Arctic Ocean"

"Woolly Mammoth Tooth, as newly exposed from the 'thawed' permafrost."

"Eroding out from 'thawed' permafrost, a 'bull' Woolly Mammoth Tooth (Molar) on a river's bank. Arctic, Alaska"

"This is his second time 'circling' me.  He is not distracted from my stance and this far north, it is very doubtful he has seen another human.  Location is thirty miles south of Barrow, Alaska."

"Woolly Mammoth Tooth" as discovered in river gravel and limestone.  A  Mammoth can go through 'six' sets of molars during it's life as the teeth erodes just from feeding on the high 'silica' content grasses and sedges. Many occasions I have discovered teeth to exhibit a very wide range of typology.  It is the most common fossil discovered in Arctic rivers from the many extinct 'Ice Age' animals of ten to forty thousand years distant."

"Ice has gone...and high waters of  spring  'run-off' has turned the gravels in this stream as a farmer plows his fields.  Some Woolly Mammoth tusks are buried and some are 'rotated' to the surface.  The cycle continues from thawing out of permafrost initially and carried downstream north to another gravel bank...'secondary'  deposition."

"Tundragon"  "Warrior Ipiutak Inuit of 2000 years distant, sculpture by William Sidmore of prehistoric 'walrus' ivory, no other photos available for this piece, many photos have been lost from the early years.  'Tundragon' was sculpted in 1982 in Skagway, Alaska."

"The day cleared, clouds left with the wind, and in the distance a mountain behind the 'Yakatat Glacier' looms in deceptively rugged terrain.  Forty miles over the 'Dangerous river' is the sleepy village of  'Yakatat Alaska'  of mostly commercial fishermen staying in the 'Glacier Bear Lodge.'  "We reserved a 'park service' cabin where all of the corners of the cabin and sign were 'chewed' off."  Bears the size of 'quarter horses' were splashing most of the water from the creeks in their pursuit of salmon and steelhead.  The little boat, left by the park service, drifts down the Dangerous river towards the sea after trying to kill us by sinking offshore in this lake 'Harlequin' as we pushed away from the glacier face.  "Saved the gear and still dream of the alternative of spending the night on an ice-berg drifting towards the Dangerous."

"1974 in Alaska, headed for a 'televised muzzle-loading shooting competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the main sponsor being Hollywood movie star 'Slim Pickens.'  Got a hundred mountaineers competing for first place a new (Greenriver 58 cal. Indian Trade Rifle) 'shoot until you miss' elimination.  Television cameras rolling "Wide World of Sports" with smoke rising and good old 'Slim' handling his custom made 'turn-barrel' blasting away.  Targets, such as a small pan dangling on a chain, with my good friend 'Lee Walsh' and I showing these 'pilgrims'  how it's done.  He and I couldn't miss this particular target in every volley so the judges moved the target back ten more yards...too see...and Lee stands up and after the smoke clears...he misses...cleanly,  I stand on the line and 'bowled' over the pan, chain and hook as it fell to the ground.  And that is how it went through the entire match and finally when the smoke cleared 'Alaska' won the rifle.!"

"Thirty Days in camp and another month to go...searching both the river's pools and gravels and even under roots and bushes that hold bones and tusks."

"Discovered on the tundra, in gravel, in a very small stream with rocks surrounding the 'projectile' of the same color and material.  A very exciting find, as stone 'arrow end blades' are uncommon, especially in unbroken condition."

"Faithful  'Watch Dog'  "Looking to roll on something 'dead,'  hair shedding,  disappearing, no commands taken, good old friend for 18 years on many expeditions and travel.  "Gretchen"  with other 'nick names' such as 'Bacon- Eggon,'  'Gregg,'  'Keg,'  and liked drinking beer til she got drunk."  "Faithful  'Mascot' of the 'Gold Rush' town of Skagway, Alaska...the most photographed dog in town."

"Ancient "Old Bering Sea" belt or cord attachment of  'Walrus Ivory' also incised in a variety of geometric elliptical motif."  "The location of this discovery was 'Kokulak village' (now extinct site) near 'Savoonga' on the coast of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska"...2200 years age...

"Woolly Mammoth Ivory 'Fore Shaft' supporting a very intricately 'knapped' projectile end blade, very narrow in profile to have the best possible penetration through very thick winter coats of 'Polar Bear' This artifact was discovered beach combing the Bering Sea region of Alaska, "The 'tie' lace was recently replaced."

"The Incredible "Ice Age" and all of it's most interesting 'mega-fauna' to such a degree that this 'Irish Elk' had an antler spread of twelve feet."
"These 'Big Bulls' favored the 'solo' trails and were hunted by our earliest ancestors, we knew these animals and the ecology of the time...we lived it"

"A very rare 'Mature Cow Woolly Mammoth' tusk as it was discovered in the river, about three feet deep, 'note' the darker tusk's 'tip' in the upper photo" "The next photo 'below' is 'out of the water' and on the boat"

"Lying in shallow water... this mature 'petite' 'Woolly Mammoth Tusk' , right hand tusk , and in perfect condition was an exciting find as I was walking on a gravel bar, bare foot, and actually looking for dinner, a nice fat 'Grayling trout.' "To this day this tusk remains as a specimen." "That evening I lost interest in fishing"

"Toklat Grizzly" "This 'close' ...there is no eye contact, when there is, it will be when he attacks" "He keeps his distance when I photographed 'him' at about fifteen feet" All the while, I keep a 'one sided' conversation with him as he walks circles around me... 'clapping' his teeth"

"Toklat Tundra Grizzly" Scrimshawed on ancient Walrus Tusk in 1976 in Skagway Alaska mounted on an ancient extinct 'Bison Pricus' vertebrate"