SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Preserved ice age animals found in the territory are getting ready to meet the public in Yellowknife.

Sarah Carr-Locke, executive director for the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, said the mummified remains of a steppe bison and the tusk of a mammoth found near Paulatuk are being prepared for an exhibit the museum will open within a month.

The remians of ice age animals, including this mammoth tusk - found near Paulatuk - will be displayed at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Museum, once conservator Rosalie Scott has finished preparing it for display. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo

"I don't think we have a firm opening date," she said. "But we have some really neat things now."

Rosalie Scott, the conservator charged with preserving the objects being prepared in a lab hidden behind locked doors at the museum, said the bison - found in Tsiigehtchic in 2007 - is nearly 14,000 years old, was completely mummified in the banks at the confluence of the Arctic Red River and Mackenzie River, and so organs, skin, and even the beast's hair is still intact.

"This is like magic," she said while touring her lab on Tuesday. "We have wonderful opportunities to see things that you don't see commonly."

The mammoth tusk - which was uncovered near Paulatuk, and has been stored at the museum for some time - wasn't destroyed by the passage of time because only the tip - now cracked and decaying - was exposed to the elements. The rest of the tusk was frozen in permafrost for thousands of years, however it hasn't been dated yet so it's unclear exactly how old it is, she said. Both of the items were kept frozen before they were cleaned and prepared for display.

She said the task of conservation is a mix of science and art.

"It requires hand skills," she said. "You need the science to understand the material you're working with. And treatment requires creativity as well."

Ingrid Kritsch, research director for the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute, said the steppe bison was found by Tsiigehtchic resident Shane Van Loon while he was walking along the river bank one day downhill from the Roman Catholic church cemetery in the community. Erosion had exposed the carcass to the open air after thousands of years underground.

"The remains were found just melting out of the permafrost," she said.

Kritsch said she got a good look at the remains when they were being stored at the institute.

"It's extraordinary. The skull itself is just massive," she said. "And the fact that ... I think it's the only such mummified steppe bison ever found in the North."

The mummified bison was kept frozen until researchers could figure out what they wanted to do with it, said Scott.

"There were pieces of flesh, internal organs, and you can see hair here, still attached," said Scott, pointing to an area of the skull still sporting a light brown tuft. "This is not fossilized. We're very fortunate in the higher arctic."

Scott said when prehistoric creatures died in the ancient North their bodies froze and began to sink further into the permafrost with the thaw and freeze-up of each passing year. After a time their bodies became completely preserved and protected against the elements underground. Now that climate change is causing the ground to thaw in places that have previously remained frozen, researchers are beginning to find out what's hidden beneath. However, she said, they need to get out and begin finding the remains quickly or the stories remains can tell will be lost forever.

"On the surface they'll start to deteriorate," she said.

She said the frozen items were freeze dried in order to take them from a frozen to dry state while skipping a wet stage.

"It sublimates the moisture that's in the skin," she said. "Weight was kept track of until it was stable. Then it was taken out of the freeze dryer and stored."

The hair, now separated from about a square-foot of leathery looking skin, was cleaned of mud which was examined my microbiologists, said Scott.

"It's really quite amazing," she said. "It's an opportunity for researchers to look into the mud for pollen and that kind of microbiology. There's information that can be revealed ... they can do research and complete a story."

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