Raising the Mammoth

In a desert of ice

at the edge of the earth

the search is on for something

out of this world.

It began with a dream

to awaken a sleeping giant and

raise it from its tomb.

And through the powers of science

to see it rise again.

One man

one mission.

The quest for the woolly mammoth.

Once a week

the Iliushin 18 touches down

on a remote airstrip

in Siberia's far north.

Khatanga, a forgotten town above

the Arctic Circle

was a Soviet outpost during

the Cold War.

Isolated by politics and geography

it seems like it's been asleep

for decades.

Khatanga is a way station for

outdoorsmen and explorers

like Frenchman, Bernard Buigues.

Since 1991

Bernard has led expeditions

to the North Pole,

and this has become his home

away from home.

To find and raise an extinct

woolly mammoth

from the frozen tundra is

this year's mission.

Long-time friend Anatoly Androssov

will provide key support.

Nicknamed "niet problem," Anatoly

is a mechanical wizard.

In a place where equipment

is ancient

and spare parts a good barter,

Anatoly's know-how will safeguard

the mission's success.

In his hunt for the ancient animal,

Bernard gathers ammunition with

21 st century tools.

The woolly mammoth reigned during

the last Ice Age

which began a hundred thousand

years ago.

The mammoth and modern elephant are

part of an ancient

order of mammals known as

the proboscideans for their trunks.

Their earliest link may have been

an amphibious animal

with a pig-like body and no tusks.

Other distant relatives developed

strange-Iooking lower tusks

resembling shovels

or fangs.

With roots in Africa dating back

four million years

ancient mammoths and elephants were

"cousins"

that walked the Earth together

before taking separate evolutionary

paths.

Only the Asian and African elephants

would survive to this century.

Whether the mammoth is more closely

related to its Asian

or African cousin is a matter of

scientific debate.

But as it moved away from tropical

climates,

it's clear that its anatomy changed

radically.

An adaptation to the cold,

the mammoths' ears shrank

as they migrated north to the Arctic.

They developed long shaggy fur

and a domed skull to hold the weight

of heavy tusks.

And their tusks grew long and curvy,

perhaps to clear the ground

as they foraged for grass and plants.

Masters of adaptation,

they thrived across the northern

hemisphere.

In Bernard's kitchen,

plans for the mammoth hunt are

hatching.

Vladimir Eisner,

a Russian interpreter with a 22-year

case of Arctic fever,

is up for the challenge.

It's a toast to success.

To hunt the animal lost to history

12,222 years ago,

Bernard must travel even

farther north.

In his two-year search

he's had little success.

But he charters a helicopter,

the only reliable way to check out

a promising new lead.

Experts think that some 12 million

mammoth remains

may be locked in the permafrost

most in northwestern Siberia

and here in the Taimyr Peninsula

where Bernard is focusing his search.

Over the years, he's done some

business

with a nomadic tribe of reindeer

herders.

He's convinced that the Dolgans

can help him.

In their travels

they find mammoth tusks,

and where there are tusks

there might be remains.

In a land of scarcity, bartering

is the custom.

I will give him spare parts...

A deal is struck, and the pay-off

handsome.

Yes, the Dolgan chief confirms,

he found a pair of tusks in

a hillside a summer ago.

It was the first time

I saw real tusks in good condition

in tundra.

It was very cold time,

but I was so excited to see the

first pair of tusks,

because the tusks belonged to

the same animal.

Of course at the same minutes

I have some pain in my hands,

but for me it was very exciting.

If you're looking for tusks in

perfect shape,

the Dolgan chief urges

go see my sons

just a few miles down the tundra.

Vladimir asks if the men,

Guenady and Gavril Jarkov,

can help Bernard locate a

museum-quality mammoth.

There's only one way to find out.

Reindeer herders of Turko-Mongolian

descent,

the Dolgans are at home anywhere on

the tundra.

The only humans in an inhuman

landscape,

the Dolgans eke their living out

of the ice

Insulated against the cold

with reindeer pelts,

their small mobile homes hold

everything they own.

Surviving the Siberian winter

is tough

and the Dolgans make do by hunting,

fishing and trading ivory they

harvest for things they can't find

or make - food supplies

and ammunition.

It's 32 below zero when the men

reach Guenady's camp.

But out here, strangers are

a startling sight.

The surprise is mutual.

Bernard realizes that he's met

Guenady Jarkov several years' back.

Once they've gotten reacquainted,

he broaches the subject of his visit

and asks for help.

Hidden under a canvas tarp to

protect them from the elements

and the eyes of strangers is

a dazzling sight,

two exquisitely preserved tusks from

an adult woolly mammoth.

Each one over 3 meters long and

weighing 45 kilos.

For me it was unbelievable

because the

these tusks was like a sculpture

a modern sculpture,

by the color, by the shape.

For me it was difficult to

understand that these so-big,

three-meters-Iong tusks can belong

to an animal.

And I was like a like a child.

For the first time since 1997,

when his search for the mammoth

began

Bernard seems to be on

the right track.

Over tea in the home he shares with

his wife, son, and in-laws,

Guenady considers a request.

Bernard wants to know if the Jarkovs

will tell him where they found

the tusks

the place where a mammoth with flesh

and organs might still be buried.

To disturb it may be risky,

says Guenady's father-in-law.

Though he doesn't approve

the old Dolgan offers advice.

Be sure to honor tradition

he counsels the men.

If they succeed in taking a mammoth

carcass out of the earth,

they must give something back

a white reindeer and some coins.

Otherwise, the spirits might

get angry and someone could die.

In a land as featureless as this one

it's hard to imagine how the Dolgans

might retrace their steps

to a distant patch of tundra.

But they can.

Long ago, the Dolgan lost their

written language

but their knowledge of the Taimyr

is encyclopedic.

Without compasses or maps they're

expert navigators

reading every bump on the terrain.

Gathering a small crew of scientists

and Russian laborers

Bernard decides to scout the site.

It's now or never if he wants to

dig this year.

The Siberian autumn is so fierce,

that there's only a small window of

opportunity

to extract a mammoth from

the frozen earth.

Were he to dig in summer like

mammoth hunters before him,

the animal might decompose before it

left the ground.

For a hundred thousand years,

the woolly mammoth dominated

the landscape

one of the largest land mammals ever

to walk the planet.

With its shaggy mammoth-like coat

the musk ox

a protected species that survived

the Ice Age

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