"Late seventies on the river, and a tusk"  "Just a small 'section' of this tusk was exposed enough to see, under the gravel, midnight 'blue' in color."  "My pilot 'finds' me after several weeks in the Arctic by following the river, never bring a satellite phone and in those days, no GPS."  "Even my recent sojourns have no communications,  or compass as I rely on my 'self' to continue."  "Often I climb a tall hill and feel the Earth under my soul, to look out on a scape that changed little for tens of thousands of years and see an ancient fire pit of reddened stones near me from the fires of the ancients."