WEBVTT - Ep. 306: An Alder Choked Hellhole 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.760 This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:17.680 severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.360 You can't predict anything presented by first, like creating proven 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.920 versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:36.320 for every hunt. First like go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody, 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.240 Uh man, We're gonna get into something where this is 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.639 my favorite topic of all time. And these are two. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.400 We have two guests today that I've been wanting to 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.080 get on. I'm gonna when I get into why uh 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:53.680 why you're here, You're gonna be extremely embarrassed. Okay, not no, 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.720 flattered and embarrassed. That's how much? How how jealous? I 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.400 am good of you? Too good? But first, your honest 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.760 is here, Brody? Like, how many times have you won 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:11.759 Media Tribune? Now, Brody? Two out of how many four? 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.479 Bretty got a perfect score. Brody got a perfect score. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.959 But we realized. I realized something that there's a correlation 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.959 between age and winning. See, I thought it was just 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:26.959 reading articles, very small sample size. Steve, you can live 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.520 with the head with your head in the hole and 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:33.160 be old. No, it's over. I realized over the years 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.000 you accumulate answers to things, and it's just a race 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:41.520 to durking On and Dirk and smoked everybody. Then we 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.759 know what was being on. My wife thinks it has 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:48.480 to do with memory too, I mean bad, because it's 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.200 not always good to remember everything right. You want a quick, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.360 funny Pat Dirkin story from last week? You know how 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.920 those Wisconsin boys that Doug Durhan, who's a huge man 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.720 rolls around with, are all large and individuals. Have you 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.240 noticed that? Yeah? And they keep getting bigger as the 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.120 night goes on, and by the time Keefer shows up, 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.920 you think like, there can't be a bigger man in Richland, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.000 Like the largest man in Richland County is now here. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.240 And then and then his labrador gets out of the 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.280 truck and it's the only lab on the planet where 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.920 the truck raises the dog gets up. You're like, what 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:25.480 is going on here? Can you imagine getting punched by Keefer? 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:30.960 Oh my god? Or punched by Doug No, no, I 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.840 think your bones would come out the other side of 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.520 your skin. They Doug punched you, And you realize why 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:39.800 they walk around like a little hunched over It's like 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.600 nothing is built for them anyway. Pat Dirkin walks out 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:49.880 into the middle of this group of gentlemen. And Pat, comparatively, 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.280 he's not from Richland County. He's not from Richland County. Comparatively, 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:59.639 he is quite small, one could say pint sized. And 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.120 you know, I said, I asked Pat. I was like, Pat, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.919 what what have you not been eating? And he said, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.440 I used to march in a company of eighty men. 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:18.000 And I'll tell you right now, I'm average sized. Uh 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.799 who else? Phil Karan? But then I want you guys 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.840 now to introduce yourselves and I'm Gonnay're not gonna embarrass you, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.320 aren't you? Guests like talk about you, where you work, 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.520 whatever however you want to do it. It's a quick intro. Okay, Um, 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.720 my name is Dan Mann. I work in the University 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:43.200 of Alaska in Fairbanks, but the Arctic Biology deal, well 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.880 that's changed recently. I used to be in the geography department, 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:49.880 which was in GA Sciences, and then last year I 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.640 quit and I went to the Now I'm back in 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.760 the Institute of Artic Biology. Senior senior research scientists in 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:01.080 the Institute of Arctic Biology Pamela uh Ham Groves, and 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.840 I'm also at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and I've 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:10.040 been in the Institute of Archebiology since. Okay, now comes 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:15.080 the part where I'll tell you how uh I met you. Guys, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.440 you probably remember this. Do you know what an individual 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.520 named Mike Cons? Very well? Okay, many years ago, many 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.520 years ago, I was in Mike cons field camp. I 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.360 think it wasn't like by the Iva Tuck Tuck. Yeah. 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:34.680 I was in his field camp doing uh, doing some 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.400 I was working on. I was working on my own 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.880 research project, which involved tagging along on his one of 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.320 his research projects. And we were up hunting arrowheads out 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.960 of helicopters on the north slope, which is prime pickings 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:54.880 for arrowhead hunting. You two happened to come through while 0:04:54.920 --> 0:05:01.839 I was there. You happened to pass through, Okay, and Dan, 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.120 you said a sentence that I stole from you and 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.400 I have used a thousand times since then. You're the 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:12.080 one to introduced to me the term alder choked hell hole. 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.000 I think it was alder haunted hell because there was 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.359 also a bear haunted hell hole, and it can be 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.800 a moose haunted hell hole too. No, it might have been, 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.720 but I swear it was alder. You had described going 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.159 through an alder choked hell hole. And you guys were 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.800 coming from doing what I thought would be the greatest 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.479 job of any job on the planet. You were just 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.960 coming off of a river trip where you floated out 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:49.039 like umpteen dozen miles of Arctic river for the sole 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:53.880 purpose of finding old asked bones eroding out of the 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:59.200 river banks. And you had found a horse skull a 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.440 place the scene horse skull that you were feeling good about. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:09.880 I just over. So how old were you? Well, I'm 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:11.880 forty seven now, so I must have been. This has 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:13.960 been in like two thousand four. So you you were 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.080 working for Outside magazine and did you do a story? 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.200 I'm Mike and his that was a Tony Baker, remember him? 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:27.640 He was he passed away, but he was an enthusiast. Yeah, 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.279 he was incredible that he was like the world's expert 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.680 on making certain tool types. Yeah, I think that was amazing. Um. 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.520 I'm curious to know how you how you two passed 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:42.239 through If you got there by a helicopter. Well, here's 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.599 the deal with like, you'll have to explain that. But 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:50.400 this place was so out there. Um. I think if 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.280 you like look math mathematically, like what's the remotest place 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.240 in North America. I think it's and you factor in 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.039 I don't know what the what the hell you factor in, 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:01.160 but like proximity to to any road populations and rolls, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.599 it's kind of like there, it's the pole of inaccessibility. 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.120 And they had to take a I can't remember what 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.760 aircraft they used, but I was in it. They'd put 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.800 fuel drums in the back of an aircraft on parachutes, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.400 the CASA from the BLM Fire Service, okay, and they 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.360 kicked the fuel drums out here and there so that 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.600 the helicause the helicopter couldn't get there on a tank 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:26.960 of gas. And so you'd be flying along in the 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.400 helicopter and you'd have to land on some little knob 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:34.400 and go down into an alder choked hellhole and roll 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.040 the barrel back up because it would have rolled off 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.480 a where off the landing zone. And they roll the 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.000 barrel back up, uncorked the barrel, hand pump gas into 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.600 a helicopter, and you passed through, I guess, because you 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:46.960 were just coming or going and it was kind of 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:52.200 a hub. It's like a well, there's a landing strip 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.160 at Iva Tuck. So you could fly small single engine 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.119 planes in there from Fairbanks and then from Iva Tuck 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.320 in the BLM days. Then there'd be helicopters that would 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.840 ferry us out to wherever we were going to work, 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.320 and then a week or two later, whatever the time 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:17.080 frame was, pick us up. We'd usually go back to 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.480 Iva Tuck, pick up more food, and go out again. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.880 And you were you were hiking when you were doing 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:27.480 these excursions. Most of the time canoeing. We did some hiking, 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.080 but we have inflatable canoes that you could roll up 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.560 and stick in the helicopter. And then that was my 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.880 I was trying to envision a helicopter camp in which 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.319 you were passing through how like you're showing your horse 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.680 hat out the window or you come intro on a canoe. 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.760 I didn't get to see the horse said, so it 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.360 was a landing strip with a camp. And then we 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.400 see this is we do like an aviation version of 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:57.440 spike camping. So they got the way this this mike 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.839 cons worked. I'll just explain the whole damn thing. Now. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.480 This is in the npr A, the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:12.959 which currently is like relative to everything else, like relative 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.480 to everything else on the continent is like like unexploited wilderness, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.200 but it is the petroleum reserve, and so they have, 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:26.320 you know, the powers that be, UM have the right 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.480 to exploit the the oil resources, the mineral oil resources. 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.040 There should there be need for this, And there's how many, 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.280 like there's like four patrolling reserves in the country, a 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.360 couple of mere Ina, California. It's basically like oil in 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.200 the bank for an emergency, but they can tap it 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.559 for whatever reason. And I don't know what it takes 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:47.199 to be able to tap the oil, but it generally 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.480 just sits there and it's kind of like it's safe 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.640 in the ground. Um should we ever have you know, 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:57.760 world War three, we have this oil to exploit. They 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:03.800 were looking to do some leases that but they hadn't mapped, um, 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:09.719 they hadn't done a cultural survey of the landscape. So 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.800 that was sort of why this big giant arrowhead hunt 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.600 was going on, is they were out mapping cultural sites. 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.200 They didn't call it a giant arrowhead hunt. They were 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.400 out matching. They were out mapping cultural sites which might 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:29.200 in the future, UM make areas that would be hands 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:35.040 off two oil X to oil drilling stuff you'd have 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:40.960 to work around okay, because there's like significant cultural findings there. 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.440 It would basically come down to they'd get helicopters, or 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.520 in our case, we had to our like our group 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:53.240 had two helicopters that operated out of this big landing strip. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.400 Or you could also land fixed wing aircraft. But then 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.840 we would spike camp using the helicopters to land in 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.560 places where you couldn't land fixed wing aircraft. So you'd 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:06.280 go into a new area, like you might go a 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:12.720 hundred miles over yonder and set up a camp and 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.640 then arrowhead hunt out of a helicopter from the spike camp. 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.720 Were you looking for known cultural sites? Are looking for? 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.640 You look for places where if you were camping, that's 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.920 where you'd camp and you'd land there. Like let's say 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:29.680 you got two rivers coming together and you got a 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.240 big like v of land and it benches out, so 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.200 like a finger wrinch coming down, it benches out. You're 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.240 twenty ft above the confluence of two streams. You can 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.040 see every direction you got water. There's a big flat spot. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:46.840 You land uphill from it or whatever on whatever place 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.319 you could land. You walk down there and a lot 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.320 of times you go down and be like, oh, there's 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.120 a big tent ring. Oh mossed over, but you can 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.680 see the rocks, and you look an exposed ground, and 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:02.680 everywhere on the exposed ground flint chips, projectile points because 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.520 no one had ever picked it over, no one ever 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:10.120 picked it over. Everything here's you know, I mean, there's 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:11.840 still stuff laying around here, but it's been people been 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.360 picking it over since. I mean they knew as sooner 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.640 got done making stone points, they started picking them up. 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:18.880 And then in the dirty third, he's like in the 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.280 dust bowl it became like a real thing to hunt arrowheads. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.959 But there it's like some dude dropped something ten years ago, 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.720 just still be laying there. And kind of what prompted 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.520 this area is cons had found this site called the 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.920 Masa site. We're gonna get back to you guys real 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:40.000 quick here. This maze site is this prominent mesa It 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.320 sits out you get you watch it. Can you guys 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:47.920 describe the maze site? Yeah, So what happened was, um, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:53.040 back in the seventies they were doing some exploratory well drilling. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:54.839 You gotta get Mike down here to tell you about 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.000 this dude. We've been trying Oh he'd love this. He 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.600 you gotta do it. Heating. He's waiting for well the 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:06.600 pandemic to and they have to take is gonna need 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.640 to call them and be like, Mike, the pandemic isn't ending. 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.040 You got to take your studio the Fairbanks. But anyway, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:17.440 so they were doing this exploratory well dwelling drilling and 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.320 they had Mike along as the archaeologist, and they were like, 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:25.080 we need some shot rock, some fill to make road beds. 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.880 So they said, look, there's a mesa over there. When 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:29.520 you guys go check it out and tell us there's 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:31.480 no arrowheads, and then we'll go blow it up and 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.160 then we'll make a road and we'll use it all 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.720 for the fill to make highways or the make you know, 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.080 to the drill pad. So Mike went up there and 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:42.160 he went, holy cow, there's like projectile points everywhere. So 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.920 sad you can't blast this place. So he collected a 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.160 little bag that had some charcoal and it brought it 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.400 back to town and it sat on his shelf for 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.360 like a decade. And then another colleague of ours, Rick Ranier, said, 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.280 one day he goes, you know those stone projectile points 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.320 you found from that may say, they're really strange. Why 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.400 don't you let me radio carbon date that little bag 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.440 of charcoal you brought back. So, yeah, they sent it 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.760 in and it was like eleven thousand years old. It's 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.040 like super old. And the projectile points you've talked to 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:17.040 Meltzer already. Yeah, so they're they're very close and styled 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.080 to fulsome points which are like early Paleo Indian or 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.840 the kind of late Paleo Indian. Anyway, they're old from 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.320 down here this area. And so suddenly they had this 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:32.000 really significant site on the Mesa and so Rick and 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.280 Mike published his paper in Science magazine, and Ted Stevens 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.480 saw it in our old Senator and he said, he 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:41.560 called him up and he invited him to Washington, d C. 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:43.720 And he said, how much money do you guys need 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.040 to continue this research? And Mike was so, what was 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.520 his interest in it? It was Alaska, So he was 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:55.800 just a tireless promoter of Alaska, called him n He 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.480 didn't care fills oiler arrowheads. Well, he was interested in 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.440 the native people and stuff. And so Mike, you gotta 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.280 ask Mike this. But the way he's told people will 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.720 come on the show, well he will Eventually Mike said, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.240 I was just so surprised that I should have said 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.960 five hundred thousand dollars a year, but I just said 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.760 a hundred and twenty thousand, and that's what he got. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.920 And so the next ten years or something, Uncle Ted 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.080 made a line item in the federal budget that Mike 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:24.800 consit BLM and Alaska we get a hundred and twenty 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.720 thousand years to do whatever he wanted with. Dude, that's 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.840 classic pork barrel, right, And that's that he brought Pam 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:31.640 and I in then because it was like, oh, we 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.080 need somebody go collect bones. Oh so you guys are 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.320 rolled into the MASA site deal. Yeah, we worked It 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:43.120 wasn't good introduction. You just stumbled upon Steve so you 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.440 were did you? Uh? So you worked up like talk 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.840 about the Maza, like what it looks like and it's 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.080 not it's not miles long. You've been there, right, Yeah, Okay, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.560 so it's it's a Mike again. You have talked to him. 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:04.000 But it's a place where the Native people came eleven thousand, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.320 eight hundred to about ten thou years ago, and it 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.520 was a hunting lookout. So you went there to kind 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.000 of check out the caribou and probably the bison. And 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:17.040 to repair your stone points, okay, because they was always breaking. 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.040 Whenever you miss something or whatever, you hit a bone, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.920 you break the point. So that you picture these guys 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.600 sitting up there like telling tall tales and repairing their 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.680 little projectile points. Right, and they left, they'd have little horrors. 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.360 So they're all these horrors. There's probably fifty different little horrors. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.880 What's that just a pole of charcoal where they had 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:42.000 little campfires. Take a little fire and it's yeah, it's 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.520 a Tennessee pronunciation of hearth. Yeah, And so I was 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.520 just dragging it out. But they're all these like Steve 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.720 was saying, all this, uh, debotage, all this these flakes, 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.720 and then occasionally they have a broken point they couldn't 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.960 repair and they just toss it. So it's an amazing 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.040 but hundreds of them. Yeah, Now it turned out it 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.200 was a gold mine for these things. But it has 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.920 a very peculiar geology. And this is kind of interesting 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.120 if you're into the geology. A lot of those other 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.640 sites you visited out towards Utkok, they're on sedimentary rock 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.720 and as a result, the frost action breaks up the 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.679 rock and it all kind of um slushes downhill with 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.040 frost action. The Mazis site is peculiar because it's on 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:29.600 this dolar rite and its deeply fractured bedrock and so 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:34.360 the water it doesn't frost heave basically, so that anything 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.560 that was there ten thousand years ago is still there. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:38.359 But if you go to another kind of outcrop, like 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.080 a lot of those you visited at by Uta Cook, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.479 it's long gone. It's down in the drainage somewhere. So 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.280 it's just like amazing kind of coincidence of a place 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:51.160 where ancient people used a lot because it's amazing lookout 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.320 site and the geology was perfect for preservation, and this 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.240 was the oldest site that had been found in Alaska 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.720 at that point of well, in the northern part of 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:08.080 Alaska when because when humans first came into North America, 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.520 you know, they crossed the Baring Land Bridge and had 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.200 to move through northern Alaska before they could get anywhere 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:18.159 else on the continent. So these were the early people. 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.400 And the other thing that's kind of interesting is it's 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.840 of course the men that were sitting up on top 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.679 looking out, and nothing has been found of like a 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.320 village or an actual settlement where the women and the 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.600 kids would have been, because that's down in the lower 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:39.399 landscape that gets washed away as the river's meander and whatnot. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.080 So that's what's the maids is so special because it's 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.280 such a stable spot geologically. How many yards long is that? 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.440 I mean it was a couple yards on top, it's 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:54.480 probably two yards, and it's three sides are steep cliffs 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.439 and so there's only one. Remember, there's kind of a 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.639 ramp that goes up outside, so it's kind of the 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.879 other thing. You gotta ask Mike about this, But my 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.720 theory always was that, you know, you you kill cariboo, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:09.880 you drag them back there, and then you're probably gonna 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:11.920 dry the meat because I don't think they're living there 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.560 during the winter. So it would be a perfect place 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:20.840 to um prepare smoke meat and hides that are safe 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.080 from the predators and the scavengers because you're up on 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.840 this kind of fortress, right, so it'd be easy to 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.840 keep the you know, the bears and so forth away. 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.760 Did you guys find on the maze of did any 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:37.760 bones come off that? Yeah? There was. You look at 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.639 each other, now, well there was one bone fragment. They 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.800 discovered really late in the excavation, and nobody knew what 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:45.639 it was. It was just like this little piece of 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.520 burnt long bone. And I'm looking at him because Mike 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:51.960 was hoping she could figure out from the d NA 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.640 what the species was. But you couldn't get DNA out 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:59.760 of it. No. Once, maybe now somebody would have the 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:04.120 tech analogy. This was in uh, the nineties, when the 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:09.240 ancient DNA technology wasn't so good. And Uh, this DNA 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.680 sits in a dead piece of tissue like bone at 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.919 degrades over time, and especially if it's been burned, the 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:21.800 high temperatures cause further degradation. So it's really hard to 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:26.560 get DNA out of old samples like that. Where's that 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.840 bone sitting now? I don't know. But now that you 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.399 brought this up, I think we should send it to 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.080 Beth and see if she can get some DNA out 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.200 of it. Now she's been on the show, Best Shapiro. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:43.560 She talked about bison. We talked mostly about mammoths. No, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:45.439 we talked a bit about bison. I want to get 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.000 into bison with you guys too. How to clone a mammoth? Yeah, 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.640 we talked about that when we talked about that book 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.760 we're trying to get her back on and apparently her 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.880 husband's and Neanderthal researcher, Yeah, which I think has gone 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:02.600 back to Neanderthal. How's it that's okay? I think it's 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.879 bags being okay to see Neanderthal. I like, uh, so 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:12.320 many of these new discoveries are new technology discovering something 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.439 that's been on somebody's shelf or in somebody's drawer that 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.680 was actually taken from the ground and in the seventies 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.239 of the sixties, the fifties, um, and it's just like 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.640 it's the ultimate horders sport, right. It was like, oh, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.320 don't throw that away. So here's the perfect example of Pam, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:33.520 tell them about your polar bear skull from Lonely. But Pam, 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.280 before you do that, I just needed to put a 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.240 button on the bone. So you don't know what You 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.040 don't have a theory about what the bonus. Uh my, 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:45.000 guess it's probably caribou, just because caribou were by far 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.119 the most common and easy to hunt, and because you 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.480 guys gave each other knowing glance. So I thought maybe 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.560 you felt that it was like a human bone, but 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:58.200 you didn't want to bring it up. No, And we've 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.119 look for human and bones and never found any. I 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:07.440 mean when we've collected bits and pieces of bones, we 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:10.359 could that be human. And I've had brought some back 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.359 and this could be and then it usually ends up 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:19.240 being a caribou something because it's the size. Okay, So 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.119 so do the polar bearing And I want to return 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:26.880 later to in your wanderings, um, what would be uh like? 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:29.359 I want to get back to the human the human 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:33.520 bone questions. So the polar bear story, of course, starts 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.440 with Mike Couns. So we were and Rick, we're near 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.320 the other guy from the Mesas. So the UM four 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:45.960 of us were up actually right on the north coast 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:50.800 of Alaska near an Old It was a do line 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:56.320 site lonely that distance early warning site or early radar 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.159 site from the Cold War? What was the word? Do 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:06.000 line line distance early warning to these old big radar 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:11.720 screens and to prevent red dawn. Right, So anyways, we'd 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.120 we'd land, the helicopter dropped it, the four of us 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.679 off and um Dan and Rick went one way with 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:21.760 their little handgun, and Mike and I went the other way. 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:24.720 And Mike had a shotgun and right before we left, 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.880 we said, s Mike, because normally we worked further inland 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.560 and the coast. And do you ever see polar bears 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:36.080 along this stretch? No, never this time of year. So 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.280 Dan and Rick are walking along with just their little handgun, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:42.040 and they look on the beach and there these really 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:45.760 fresh polar bear tracks, which are really distinctive because in 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.160 polar bears you can see the hair. They have all 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.080 that hair on their feet and so well the hair 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:53.760 shows up in the track in the moll. They were 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:57.320 so fresh, and because the tide had just gone out, 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.360 so it was really obvious, and so it was kind 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.880 of foggy. So they're looking around and that the helicopter 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.159 disappeared in the fog, you know, so there was no 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:09.480 way you could have waved a warning. So they're going 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:11.480 one way and Mike and I are going the other way. 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:13.360 And then I said to Mike, so do you ever 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:17.720 find bones up here along the coast? And he goes nah. 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:21.080