Raising the Mammoth Page #3

their prehistoric prey

and they wonder if he knows...

The chance at a free meal has lured

an intruder to the mammoth site,

much to the annoyance of

the camp's sentinel.

It's an Arctic fox.

There's a story told on the Taimyr

of a hunter who

happening upon a mammoth carcass

feeds its meat to the dogs.

Stranger things have happened here.

Perhaps it's even true.

The tempest sweeps across the tundra

like a legion of Arctic ghosts.

Unwilling to stop until the last

possible moment,

the team labors on under precarious

cover.

Conspirators against time and the

elements

the men savor an unlikely victory.

Out of respect for the Dolgans

Bernard names the mammoth Jarkov

after Guenady.

Frustrated by the slow pace of

a cold-weather dig,

Bernard tries an unorthodox but

effective way of speeding things up.

After some hours, start to appear

some piece of hair,

and also it start to smell something

coming from an animal.

It was a big pleasure to put my hand

in all this hair

and life was coming from the ground.

It was like touching a live animal.

At that time, I was sure that

the mammoth were here.

Not only with my eyes but also

with my hand,

with my nose, and with my head.

Making haste toward the campsite

is an unexpected refugee.

It's a Dolgan reindeer herder

who's passed through here before.

Not even masters of survival

on the Taimyr

want to weather a storm of this

magnitude alone.

As the hours pass,

the winds howl across the tundra

until all efforts

to resist their fury are pointless.

Too late to pack up and leave,

the only thing left to do is batten

down the hatches,

and wait it out.

The gusts are so powerful

that Boris has the team brace

the shimmying walls

with whatever's at hand.

To lose their shelter here

could be fatal.

No one knows for sure if the thin

canvas walls will hold up

against this kind of punishment.

All members of the expedition

are present

and accounted for except for one

Boris' dog.

Scraping snow from their clothing

is a basic safety precaution out here.

Staying dry in subzero temperatures could

mean the difference between

life and death.

Could this storm be the curse

the Dolgans warned of?

The work of vengeful spirits of

the earth?

Always this story was in my mind

and when come this storm,

for me was the first sign

that I was doing something not

in the harmony

of this culture Dolgan.

The fact that Boris' dog disappear

was not a coincidence.

Boris feel that he sacrifice his dog

to permit me

to do this work on the mammoth.

To capture an ancient mammoth is

a game of chance.

To raise it, a test of skill and luck.

If a pawn has been lost to

an unknown foe

they hope it will be the last.

Sleep might bring relief

from the storm

and the tedium of this endless day.

This is a good "chap" to sleep

during the polar day.

You put it on the head

and it makes a "op" and you sleep.

Whatever the storm has wrought

will have to wait until morning.

Daybreak, 26 hours after

the Arctic onslaught

an eerie calm hangs over the tundra.

Half the camp has been scattered

to the wind

and word has come that another storm

could hit by nightfall.

Salvaging whatever they can,

they prepare to break camp.

But first they must recover

the mammoth

from under 2 meters of snow.

They've come too far to let

the tundra reclaim their treasure.

Suiting up in white gloves and

protective clothing,

Bernard and his assistant are men

on a mission.

This one, in the name of science.

It's zero nine hundred.

Their assignment, to gather samples

of frozen mammoth tissue

in perfect condition for a scientist

in a distant lab.

The job is simple, if you know what

to look for.

And have the right tools...

Bernard hopes the frozen mammoth jaw

will yield perfect specimens.

Once the men have cleaned the jaw

by chiseling away permafrost,

they review the instructions given

to them miles

and worlds away from here.

Collect three samples of skin

and three of cartilage that have

never been defrosted

and preserve them in the specimen

vials provided.

If the samples are good

and make it home intact

who knows what secrets can be learned

about the behemoth of the Ice Age?

And whether the new millennium

will see it rise again?

If they do return

where will they roam?

Today the tundra belongs to others.

For 422 years, the Dolgan people

have lived in rhythm

with the seasons here at the

northernmost edge of the world.

Today, only a few hundred nomads

inhabit

a region the size of California.

Following the Khatanga River

and the annual migrations of

wild reindeer

they hunt some and tame others much

like their ancestors did.

Baloks, simple homes of canvas

and hide

balanced on skids, protect against

the biting chill of the Arctic.

It's time to move on

and leave the mammoth

for another season.

The flight back to Khatanga takes

only an hour and a half.

As the dangers of the Arctic recede

into the night

the aircraft carries the men further

from their goal.

When the lights of civilization come

into view

the thought of warm beds

and creature comforts offers little

consolation

to the mammoth hunters.

The chance to free a woolly mammoth

from its ancient tomb is gone

for this year

yet so many questions remain.

Was it simply the weather,

or forces more complex that dealt

the team such a blow?

Bernard has arranged to store

the artifacts

from the Taimyr in an unusual icebox.

Three stories below the streets

of Khatanga

are caves that stretch for nearly

7 kilometers.

Built at the height of the Cold War

this enormous refrigerator can store

food for thousands...

and the remains of a woolly mammoth.

I saw him, I touch him, I smell it...

I was so close to him and

I wondered how he could escape

from me.

But at the same time I need to

think about the next step.

Whatever the next step,

there'll be no search until

next autumn.

It will take time and luck

to outmaneuver

the colossus of the tundra.

St. Petersburg, Russia

the Mecca for mammoth hunters.

Professor Nikolai Vereschagin

is a renowned paleontologist

and the man who may know more

than anyone else about the life

of the woolly mammoth.

The Russian is famous

for his 1977 excavation of a frozen

baby mammoth named Dima.

Bulldozed out of a Siberian riverbed,

the animal was almost

entirely preserved

with all of his internal organs

an extraordinary find.

Now in his early '92s, the oldest

living mammoth hunter

shares some basics with Bernard.

Tusks of dominant males could be

5 meters long.

The largest animals could

weigh 12 tons

double the size of an elephant

132 times the weight of

the average man.

Both Neanderthal and modern man

share a history with the mammoth.

In those days, men liked to

hunt mammoth

which was plentiful on the tundra.

Its enormous weight produced

three tons

of excellent meat all at once.

It could feed a lot of people

for a long time,

and so was most worthwhile for

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