I am the Queen of Stuck

Ok, you caught me. I didn’t post yesterday. Hope you weren’t all waiting all night for me to post!! :)

Yesterday began on a sort of sad note. Beth left for Whitehorse, leaving us a tab at the grocery store and good wishes. She heads to France today for a conference and will be missed!! She is the whole reason I am here, and I can’t thank her enough. Duane, Paul, and Fabrice also left. They headed for a site outside of Fairbanks, Alaska to take samples. Duane was explaining that they were taking a helicopter in and out each day, and he estimated that the whole trip would cost about $50,000 for the week! Yikes!

Mattias and I took some great pictures at the pharmacy, which are shown above. We bought out the store in clear nail polish and whiteout, because the bags of bones that need to be cataloged just keep coming!

We then headed to Quartz Creek. We searched around for new bones, and checked on old ones that were stuck in the permafrost. We helped take samples of squirrel middens, and then Tyler filmed a funny scene where I am excited to show everyone the middens while right next to the emerging (complete) mammoth tusk.

For dinner we all decided to go out because it was a smaller group. The sangria was great.

Today, Mattias and I became Paleontologists of the week, as we returned to Quartz Creek and excavated the mammoth tusk!! It is SO COOL. It is HUGE, and it just makes me in awe of how big the mammoths must have been. It was really stuck in the ice, so we had to divert water/flowing mud over to it with ice picks, and literally chisel away around the tusk. It took about 2 hours of work yesterday and another 2 or 3 today. It curls a little at the end, which Mattias said may have been from the mammoths using the tusks to clear away snow.

We learned that mammoth tusks are sort of controversial around here. For most kinds of work, including archaeology and paleontology, there is always some sort of politics. According to Canadian law, all bones/artifacts found anywhere in Canada belong to the Crown (yes, the Queen of England). Here in the Yukon, miners get around this by just not reporting finds and keeping them. We were told today that our intact mammoth tusk could have easily fetched $30,000 on the black market. Holy crap, right? Everything boils down to money, as always. Sigh. I do not know where the tusk will be stored until it goes to Whitehorse to the Yukon government.

This morning, before going out in the field, we enjoyed a World Cup game of Germany vs Argentina, with Mattias being extremely pleased with Germany’s performance. While we were driving to the site (Have I mentioned that the sites are between 1 to 1.5 hours EACH WAY? I spend a lot of time in the car.) Mattias introduced me to a German rapper on his ipod. Not bad overall.

Tonight or tomorrow we are headed into town again to the showing of How To Train Your Dragon. The theater has shows once a day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so we aren’t sure how busy it is going to be, but I’m excited.

I definitely need a shower because this muck really, really smells. :s

Cheers!