Raising the Mammoth Page #5

Vladimir, a former meteorologist

radios Khatanga.

There's bad news in the forecast.

The men have abandoned

the solar tent opting

to dig in the granite-like

earth instead of the mud.

Like detectives scratching for

evidence at the scene of a crime

they leave no stone unturned.

Eventually, their perseverance

pays off.

The first clue plucked from the

permafrost is modest

but to the Ice Age detectives

a major victory.

It's the wiry hair of

a woolly mammoth.

The men are closing in on

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?

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