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The Current Transcript for September 6, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

I just think they are beautiful animals. I mean, it's an icon of the ice age. Right. And all of a sudden, there's one laying in front of you. You're speechless.

MATT GALLOWAY: What left? Geologist Jeff Bond. Speechless was a perfectly preserved baby, woolly mammoth pulled from the ice in a gold mine outside of Dawson City, Yukon. It was a discovery that made news around the world this summer and for good reason. These beasts have been gone for so long that there's not even a word for the mammal and the local Han language.

SOUNDCLIP

There could have been a name that existed generations ago, but it no longer exists anymore. So it seemed to make sense to be able to name this animal Nun cho ga.

MG: New trocar The Current went to the Yukon last month. Coming up in 30 minutes, what the discovery of this creature tens of thousands of years old means to those who unearthed her. And to the local first nation who see the mammoth not as a scientific specimen, but as an ancestor. We begin, though, with shock, horror and grief in Saskatchewan. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Suspect remains at large after stabbing rampage in Saskatchewan

Guests: Olivia Stefanovich, Monique Rollin

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My sister was lying in her driveway with her friend and a young boy, two all dead. They were... They were massacred.

MG: That's Ivor Burns describing what happened to his sister, Gloria Burns, an addictions counsellor in James Smith Cree Nation. Early Sunday morning, ten people were killed and 18 more injured in the stabbing rampage in Saskatchewan. Ivor Burns says he has little doubt what was at the heart of this tragedy.

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The drug problem and the alcohol problem on injured reserve is way out of hand. We have dead people and we asked before for something to be done.

MG: Ivor Burns, his brother, Darryl Burns, said the root cause runs even deeper.

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We all know what happened in residential schools. We all know the damage is done to our people. So now that the effects are rippling down into our children, because those are things that we've never dealt with in our past, we said, are things that our leadership have never dealt with in their lives and are second generation residential survivors. We're passing on those same traits onto our children.

MG: One of the victims, 77 year old Wes Patterson, was found in the neighbouring community of Weldon. Ruby Works is hoping to hold a candlelight vigil for her friend as a way to honour his life and bring her community together.

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We got to be here for each other, support each other. That's what we all need to do. One step at a time, any day and we'll, you know, get together to do this. You got, you have to put your queer face away, put the brave face on and do this.

MG: In the meantime, police are still searching for one suspect, 30 year old Myles Sanderson. Police confirmed yesterday that the other suspect, Damien Sanderson, was found dead with wounds that did not appear to be self-inflicted. For the latest, we're joined by CBC reporter Olivia Stefanovich. She's in Saskatoon. Olivia, good morning.

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Good morning.

MG: What do we know at this moment from the RCMP about the whereabouts of Myles Sanderson?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Well, Myles Sanderson is still on the run and people in Saskatchewan are once again waking up to another emergency alert about the search. RCMP say they received credible accounts that Myles was seen in a black Nissan Rogue on Sunday morning with Damien Sanderson in Regina. But yesterday they backtracked a bit from that statement, saying it's unclear who that second person was who was believed to be spotted with Myles. So they're still operating under the impression that Myles is in the capital city of Saskatchewan, because that's where his last and only sighting was since the stabbing.

MG: Police confirmed some more information yesterday. Again, there are still more questions than answers. One of the things is that these two men were brothers. The other is that Damien Sanderson was found dead. What do we know about how Damian Sanderson died?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Yeah, well, Damian was found in a bush, police say, away from one of the crime scene sites. You're one of the homes in James Smith Cree Nation. And that's more than 300 kilometres north of Regina, where police say he was was seen. They received credible accounts that he was spotted driving with his brother, Myles. So this came as a surprise yesterday, not to many of the people I've been speaking with in James Smith Cree nation, who believed he was well gone from the community far away.

MG: Hmm. And so what do we know at this point, whether Myles Anderson is alone right now?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: We don't, in fact. RCMP say he may even have help at this point, especially since they believe he may be injured and could be seeking medical attention.

MG: We heard earlier family members of Gloria Burns talking about her and her death. We also heard of a friend of Wes Patterson. Some information has been coming out about the victims and their families. What can you tell us about some of the victims?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Yeah. Well, I've been speaking with some of the victims' family members. I want to introduce you to Michael Brett Burns, who is the former partner of Lana Head. She was a security guard, he says, at the Northern Lights Casino here in Saskatchewan in Prince Albert. And Burns says that she died in the attack on Sunday, along with her current partner. And she leaves behind two children who she shared with Burns, as well as two grandchildren, Matt.

MG: Ten people were killed in this rampage, 18 people still in hospital. What do we know about those 18?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Well, most of the victims are from John Smith's creation. And the latest figures we have come to us from the Saskatchewan Health Authority that show four patients are in critical care, nine in stable condition, and four have been discharged from hospital.

MG: I know that the community has asked for privacy in this moment, a moment to grieve and to try to to pull the community together. But members of the community also came out to speak with the media. Right?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Yeah, that's right. And there is a bit of, I would say, disagreement amongst some community, some community members about whether they should speak now or wait for leadership to speak first. I have spoken to the leadership march in John Smith Cree Nation, and they are working on a press conference possibly to take place later on this week. But the really asking for space at this time, because they only just accounted for the dead yesterday and the families coming to the pad office who are understandably very upset, they're traumatised by what happened. You know, when I mentioned Michael Brett Burns, the former partner of Lana, Lana had who died, he says that he actually heard what happened on Sunday morning in the early hours. He says he was actually awaken because he heard that the attackers went to the apartments on both sides of him. So he's in the middle. And both of his neighbours, he says, were attacked. And he says that his neighbours actually held down their bedroom door and that's how they survived. And Michael also tells me that he tried to help. Afterwards, he brought one of the injured to the health clinic at James Smith creation. And he says that many of the victims there, they were still in their pyjamas and many of them couldn't sit up straight. So this happened in the early morning on Sunday. So people were barely awake. And the community needs time to process this and they're asking for that space.

MG: Absolutely. That's entirely understandable. What do we know about the relationship between these suspects and the community itself, the community where this horror unfolded?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Well, RCMP confirmed yesterday that Damien and Myles are actually brothers, and they're what they're from one of the three bands, according to community members, that make up James Smith creation. And we understand that Damien, he had a family and community members say he had troubles in his life. And they say his story, they believed, didn't have to end this way.

MG: We're also hearing from the Saskatoon police that they have been searching for the suspect, Myles Sanderson, what since May, when he stopped meeting with a caseworker after he was released from prison on parole. He was classified as unlawfully at large. What else do we know about him?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Yes. Well, he was on statutory release at that time and he stopped checking in with that caseworker in Maine. And so the 30 year old has been wanted by police ever since. And CBC News obtained parole records not that show he has a violent past 59 convictions as an adult. He served nearly five years in a federal sentence for assault, robbery, mischief and uttering threats.

MG: And yet in the midst of all of that, as you say, he was released on statutory parole and the parole board had deemed that he would not present an undue risk to society in that release.

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Yeah, that's right. And it's just something that many community members are bringing up as a huge issue to their leadership. They are, you know, understandably scared. They're on lockdown right now, not in their community. I was speaking to an elder yesterday who hasn't unlocked his doors except for RCMP who are coming around to check the community. And they want answers about why Myles was gone for so long and how this has all been sort of seemingly allowed to happen by the fact that he was you know, nobody found him after he stopped checking in with that caseworker. They want answers.

MG: What sort of support is the community getting from the province and beyond? The Prime Minister spoke yesterday and said that the community would have the support of the federal government in the days, the weeks, the months, in the years to come in terms of healing. But in this moment, as you say, there's a state of emergency in the community's locked down. So what sort of support is the community getting right now?

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Well, as you mentioned, those statements mean we're certainly hearing words of condolences from the Prime Minister and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and the province. For its part, it's activated its provincial command to coordinate and deploy victim services to James Smith Cree Nation. And it's also supplying about 16 staff from the Provincial Protective Service. The federal government is also working with the community. It's trying to reach out to leadership. Some of the federal ministers have spoken to the leadership and James Smith Cree Nation asking for what kind of supports they need moving forward. And one thing we are hearing is that the community will need mental health supports going forward. So we understand that Indigenous Services Canada is working on this, but right now they are trying to give the community a better space to again process this and decide really what they need going forward. There will also be a lot of financial support that will be needed, especially for things like funerals in the days to come. So already some fundraisers are starting online to help the victims of these attacks.

MG: This is, as you've hinted, a very close knit community. And in the midst of this awful moment and people trying to process what's happened, there are stories that are being shared online through social media about the loved ones who've been lost, but also about moments of heroism.

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: That's right. Well, this is, you know, a close knit community. There's about 2000 people who live in Jim Smith Cree Nation. And, you know, Facebook is one of the main lines of communication in this community, because the attack has affected so many people and so many people here are related to each other. And they're sharing updates on their accounts to make sure that people know that their family members are either, you know, recovering in hospital, that they're safe. And again, they're trying to piece together what happened here, and they're trying to come together to support one another. It is difficult because they are still in lockdown mode and they only again finished accounting for the dead yesterday. So there's still shock that's in the community and it still hasn't worn off. I mean, we're still in the very early days here and some people are growing angry. They are going to leadership. They're demanding justice. They want answers. So, you know, for now, we actually haven't been able to go to the community to speak to anybody in person because they're asking for space now. They don't want reporters driving through the community. They want to take things slow. And I spoke to the chief, Wally Burns, of Jean Smith, Cree Nation yesterday. And he's asking people again to be patient because he says this is the most difficult time for them and they need time to not only process what happened, but also to do a lot of healing work that needs to take place.

MG: Olivia, thank you for this.

OLIVIA STEFANOVICH: Thanks for having me.

MG: Olivia Stefanovich, senior reporter for CBC's parliamentary bureau. She is in Saskatoon. Well, for more on the police response and the search for the one remaining suspect, I'm joined by Monique Rollin. She is a former incident commander for the U.S. Marine Police Service and the vice president and director of training at the Canadian Critical Incident, Inc. She trained officers in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert in recent months. Monique, good morning to you.

MONIQUE ROLLIN: Good morning, ma'am.

MG: As you understand it, and what would the search be like right now for that one suspect who is still on the loose?

MONIQUE ROLLIN: This search could be massive if it isn't intelligence driven. So there would be a large operational machine going on in the background. So a large scale investigation is what's going to drive this search. You can imagine where if you are searching blind, you would be searching the province, and that's insurmountable. And so the investigative team, that large scale operation in the background, who would be doing as much research and investigation and following up tips and leads and looking at relationships and social media history and any connexions that the suspect would have to another person that would be driving the search. And then, on the other hand, the search would be driven by tips and information and video surveillance. Anything that has to be reviewed that could put Myles Sanderson at a particular location, and then the search would take over from there.

MG: And you can review that that video surveillance very quickly to be able to to be as up to date as possible in that search.

MONIQUE ROLLIN: Well, it starts with a canvass, and that's very labour intensive. So when you're thinking about security cameras on businesses or down a street, on doorbell cameras, those kinds of canvasses and tips that come in when you start to put a timeline together or a location together will trigger a new last known location for a first search.

MG: As you mentioned, part of this could be province wide there. There's a huge swath of area where the suspect could be. This is a multi-jurisdictional operation. And so, yes, what does that do in terms of advantage, but also, I suppose, challenges to a search like this?

MONIQUE ROLLIN: Well, the advantages are resources. And so we've heard Rhonda Blackmore say that all of her policing partners in the province have stepped up.

MG: And she's from the RCMP.

MONIQUE ROLLIN: Yes, she's the RCMP lead. She's the RCMP assistant commissioner for the province. And she has said that she is grateful that all of her municipal and provincial partners, policing partners, have stepped up to every ask. It is a huge manpower or salary. People power, let's say, resource draw for an event of this type. And so when we're looking at individual municipalities, they would look at interoperability and multi-jurisdictional response under the same mission. Of course, RCMP are leading this investigation. However, for example, Regina would undertake a large scale search on their own in conjunction and working interoperability with the RCMP.

MG: I mentioned you've done training with officers in this area. We know that broadly, relations between the RCMP and some indigenous communities in Saskatchewan have been strained, to say the very least. And many people in those communities don't trust the police for for historical reasons and reasons that are not historical reasons that might be very present and very immediate. How does that complicate a search like this?

MONIQUE ROLLIN: I don't see it as complicating it. I see it as the RCMP standing up with every resource that they have in public safety being paramount here. Public safety comes first. There's always a weight of risk. How much information that should go out to the public versus are we going to maybe impede or look at the integrity of an investigation? There's no question that the policing partners in that province have stepped up to make community safety a priority.

MG: One of the things again in this came out in the last conversation that we had with Olivia, is that one of the suspects, Myles Sanderson, was classified as unlawfully at large. Yes. Police have been searching for him since May. How unusual is it to have a suspect, to have a suspect disappear, not be found for months in. Yes, it's a large geographical area. But does that seem unusual?

MONIQUE ROLLIN: No, it doesn't. There are thousands and thousands of inmates because you're still considered, you know, in serving a sentence at your statutory release who don't report to parole, who have warrants issued for their arrest. That's not uncommon across this country to have those types of offenders at large. What it means is when they have served two thirds of their sentence and are released that statutory release, it's because the legislation allows for that with certain conditions. And some of those conditions are to report to a parole officer or some sort of supervision area programme. And those violations happen every day. So it's not necessarily unusual, particularly if that person has left the jurisdiction that they were restricted to who is actually looking for them? Because I guess it's a question, but it's not uncommon at all to have offenders who are violating parole at large.

MG: Is that a resource issue in terms of finding someone like that, particularly somebody who might have past convictions of. Assault, assault with a weapon. That if that person is unlawfully at large, that the police wouldn't be able to track that individual down.

MONIQUE ROLLIN: Well, it's not always it's a combined responsibility. And I can't speak to the process in Saskatchewan because I understand the process more in Ontario. But resources are always at issue.

MG: I guess. And this goes back to the issue of trust in communities. How vulnerable does something like that leave a community?

MONIQUE ROLLIN: What we're vulnerable to, to all of these offenders if they're at large and they have a history of violence. Of course, if we find these members in our community certainly puts us at risk.

MG: Does the fact that the weapon that was used in these attacks was a knife, does that change how police approach a search like this and approach? You know, yet the efforts to try to track this individual down.

MONIQUE ROLLIN: Is certainly elevates the risk to responders. Absolutely. When you think people assume that firearms are our greatest risk when it comes to things like mass casualties and disasters like this, tragedies like this. But really, when you think about what's happened here, the level of violence is probably some of the highest I've ever heard. And so we're dealing with someone who has. You know, advance that level of violence to the point where they've taken multiple lives with a knife. It speaks to the risk involved more so than the weapon, because we can't assume that Myles Anderson is still in possession of a knife or any other weapon or has, you know, managed to get some sort of firearm. That assumption is always going to be there when we speak to this level of violence and the risk, of course, when we look at confrontation with Myles Sanderson, we now understand how high the risk of violence is.

MG: We'll leave it there. There are still, as I said, many more questions than answers. And we will keep a close eye on what's going on in that province. Monique, thank you very much.

MONIQUE ROLLIN: You're very welcome.

MG: Monique Rollin, former incident commander for the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service. She's now vice president and director of training at the Canadian Critical Incident Incorporated and has done much training with officers in that region around Saskatoon and Prince Albert over the last several months. Your CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

A phone call came in that they found a baby mammoth. And the impact of it is just unbelievable. Amazing. And it's almost like one of your ancestors that you're making that connection to.

MG: That incredibly well-preserved baby Mammoth was discovered at a gold mine in the Yukon this summer. It's very meaningful to the local first nation and to paleontologists. It's an incredible story and we'll bring it to you coming up next. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. And we're back in six minutes with a story that made news right around the world. Stay with us.

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What a frozen woolly mammoth means to a Yukon community – pt. 1

Guests: Jeff Bond

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Over the next hour on this programme, the remarkable story of a baby woolly mammoth and what it is teaching people in the Yukon about life in the ice age. And half an hour, we speak with two members of the Toronto Question First Nation, who considered the mammoth an ancestor and want it treated with care and respect. They've named it Nun cho ga, which means big animal baby in the hand language. We start, though, in an active gold mine just outside of Dawson City.

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SOUNDCLIP

If it's rock, it's really sharp sound.

[Sound: Knocking]

MG: Elizabeth Hall knows exactly where everything on this valley floor sounds like.

SOUNDCLIP

And then if it's a piece of wood, it's kind of it's very dull.

[Sound: Knocking]

MG: She's a paleontologist with the Yukon government. And every summer she's out at gold mines like this collecting fossils.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 2: And then if it's a bone, it's somewhere in between.

[Sound: Tapping]

MG: She's tapping items on the ground with the ice axe that she always carries.

SOUNDCLIP

Yeah. Then I just decide if I'm going to make an effort to bend over and pick up the bone.

MG: Paul Phillips owns this gold mine. He's further up the creek, blasting a powerful stream of water at the side of the valley.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: And how much water are we talking here going out the canyon?

VOICE 2: Not that much.

VOICE 1: 700 gallons a minute, maybe?

VOICE 2: Yeah.

MG: It's bringing down rocks and sediment. And he hopes some gold as well. But it's also revealing fossils. Hundreds are found here each summer.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 2: Mammoth casts, lots of bisons. Every 5 minutes, there's another bison bone, like a graveyard.

MG: Most are about 20,000 years old. And they can tell scientists a lot about what life was like back then.

SOUNDCLIP

ELIZABETH: Because these bones are in the permafrost. Coming out of the permafrost, they've it's like they've been frozen in time. So it's like falling into a gigantic freezer. And because of that, the biological information hasn't desegregated. So we can get ancient DNA from them. We can look at their chemical composition. Marrow can be preserved. Lipids are preserved. There's a lot of bones that still smell quite fresh. Yeah, it's crazy and gross and like to make people smell bones.

MG: Thankfully, doesn't make me smell it. But she is carrying a prised find in a plastic bag. Her colleague found it earlier in the week.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 2: She found this wolverine skull, which is quite cool. But wolverine is is we're slowly amassing more and more, but it's probably within our collection. We maybe have ten specimens. So is really quite rare. Oh, there's another one.

MG: Elizabeth carries on alongside the creek.

SOUNDCLIP

And this one is a bison metacarpal, which is basically a bison hand.

MG: Another bison. It's not quite as exciting as a find that was made earlier this summer at another Klondike gold mine. Heavy equipment was being used to pull frozen blocks off the face of the valley. And inside one of those blocks was the body of a baby mammoth. The miner realised he'd found something special. He put it in the bucket of his digger and headed back to camp.

SOUNDCLIP

JEFF BOND: I was sitting in my truck and happened to check my email and that's when I noticed the the email from Grant Zazula, our territorial palaeontologist looking for, you know, announcing the discovery essentially to a wide variety of people and, and, and asking for help if anybody was in the area to to basically go in and and bring it back to to a freezer.

MG: Jeff Bond is with the Yukon Geological Survey. He just happened to be in the Dawson region that day, working on a site with some Ph.D. students.

JEFF BOND: I knew exactly who it was and I knew exactly where to go. And I had a team of people that were ready to go in the back. I had all my sample bags and everything. And I said, we're we're on our way.

MG: On their way to a mine 60 kilometres south of Dawson City.

JEFF BOND: When I told everybody, this is what we're going to do. They were like, What? Are you kidding me? We're going to we're going to rescue a baby mammoth. I said, well, that apparently that's all we're doing. And so when I got there, they had they had it in the excavator bucket up at camp, and there was tarps and sleeping bags on it and basically keeping it chilled. And and there was this beautiful creature. I mean, it was is breathtaking, to be honest. And it was still quite it was a bit different colour at that point, still a bit pinkish. And we had a look at it. We, we snapped a couple pictures and we're like what do we do now? We got to like we got to we've got to get back we got to put this stuff back on. We put the sleeping bag back on it and we got to get down to the site. We've while it's fresh in the miners mind where it came from and do and do a bit of work there.

MG: You used the word beautiful to describe it. Can you tell me why you use that word?

JEFF BOND: Its extinct creature. And all of a sudden it's like it's alive in front of you. It's that fresh and and it's a baby. It's hardly desiccated, you know, it's it's not flattened. It's it's trunk was had already thawed. It was it was you could you could pick it up and move it freely. It was it was an amazing, pristine condition. And I just think they are beautiful animals. I mean, it's an icon of the ice age. Right. And all of a sudden, there's one laying in front of you. I mean, how do you. You're speechless, really? It's it's the only way I can think of it. But at the time, it was kind of reactionary mode. You know, you didn't have much time to digest what what you were you what you were seeing, actually.

MG: Tell me more about that. Because as you said, I mean, the trunk is already thought out. It's come out of.

JEFF BOND: That's right.

MG: At a frozen block.

JEFF BOND: Yeah. 40,000 years of being frozen or roughly in time.

MG: How quickly do you need to act and what did you have to do then?

JEFF BOND: Well, we knew we needed to get it back. That was priority. But we could see that it was it was cool. And like in the body itself was would have it's frozen still. So it just the extremities were starting to thaw and we thought, let's spend a couple hours down at the cut and we've got a team of people. So we went down there, we met up with the excavator operator and we walked to the location where had been ripping and there's mammoth fur in the sediment, a piece of intestine that had got ripped out and sort of the excavation process initially and was on the ground there. So we knew we were in the right spot. So we spent some time there and we took some we took some samples of of the various deposits. There's lots of organic material that was associated with it that we wanted to to collect as well. So we spent about a couple of hours there.

MG: And then you need to deal with the mammoth itself.

JEFF BOND: Yeah, we need to do the mammoth. And so that was that was an interesting time in the day because we were there. There were dark clouds coming up the valley. We're in a small valley that's called Eureka Creek, and we're in the right fork of Eureka Creek and we're quite a ways up in the drainage. So you're in kind of some higher country and you can see this dark cloud coming up the valley and we're like, let's get the drone up and get a few shots and then get out of here. And so I went back to the pickup truck and I got my drone up in the air for maybe two, 3 minutes before the raindrop started to come down. And just as I land the drone, literally the skies opened up. It was an incredible storm, rolled right into the mine site. There was lightning flashes all around us. By the time the crew got back, they got caught in it. They were absolutely drenched. We didn't know they had taken the raincoats with them. The mine shut down temporarily. We drove back up to the camp and and we backed up to the mammoth. And it was raining so hard, the rains filling up the excavator bucket that the mammoth's in. And we've we've we've got to get this thing out of here. And so we we jumped out of the truck and we had bins already that the miner had given us some Rubbermaid bins to put it in. And we, we reached in, lifted it out of the excavator bucket and put it in these and carefully into these bins, covered it back up and, and then hit the road for Dawson.

MG: And had you not done that that quickly aid you might not have got it out of the bucket. But B had you not been able to get over here quickly and that storm rules and what would have happened to the mammoth?

JEFF BOND: Oh, it's the decomposition thing. And start like right away. Yeah, literally. And soon as it's you know, it was it was thankfully it was cool at that point in time but yeah there was there it was a race against time, really. I mean, we did take some time to describe the site, which I'm glad we did in terms of getting our eyes on it and getting the initial samples we needed. But, you know, 2 hours was probably a little bit perhaps we could have left a half hour earlier, not got caught in the storm, but it was it was as if Non-Sugar was was announcing her arrival. And that's the part that touches me the most. There's a there's a we were at the site the following two days later with a with the first nation that tried to question, and they blessed the site where the mammoth came from. And they asked, give us strength to understand why she has come to us. And then questions like that, which were, I think, extremely powerful. It comes at a time when when people really do need to come together. And and here is this this beautiful creature bringing people together that day and and ever since. And so it's yeah, it's touched me like no other geological find in my career.

MG: You ever look in your eyes when you talk about it? What is it about this? Like things are discovered all the time. Right? Right. What is it about this that is so powerful?

JEFF BOND: In my career as a quick turnaround geologist, you you study the ice ages. You study the time between the ice ages in the past and. And. And we're curious about the history of the earth from the ice age periods. And the mammoth is is a symbol of that time. It's the icon. And in and with my colleagues, we've always we've always kind of joked in and and thought about, wouldn't that be amazing if a frozen mammoth fell out of a one of these cuts one day and there we were experiencing it and so. And just to be able to see an extinct creature in in the flesh and that so beautifully preserved. And and you do begin to wonder what the meaning of it is. I mean, you have to remember that this is this is on solstice, June 21st at noon when it came out. That's National Indigenous Day. And it's a holiday. And there's, you know, the longest day of the summer. And and it announces its arrival in, you know, that day and a storm to follow. And you do begin to wonder, like what? What kind of power is connected to. To the mammoth.

MG: When she got to the bottom of the hill and beat the storm and drive yourself off, where does the mammoth go? I mean, do you talk about a race against time? Yeah, you have to. There are things that you have to do to ensure that it doesn't.

JEFF BOND: That's right. The climate. Further. Before we left Dawson on the way to Eureka Creek, Grant Zazula was tasked with finding freezer space in town. So when we were coming back into town, it was our he. We basically got onto the cell phone and talked to him about, you know, where we had to go and he had it all lined up. And so we, we backed up to a garage bay door and and there was someone there to meet us. And, and we, we got busy putting, taking the mammoth out of the bins and, and laying it on a tarp and, you know, taking a few photos of that at that moment and kind of had to put her back together and figure that out a bit, too, and then wrapped her up and got her into the freezer. So it was.

MG: What kind of like what kind of freezer?

JEFF BOND: A walk in freezer? Yeah, a large walk in freezer. So something big enough. This is a kind of about four feet long and weighed maybe about 80 to £100. And yes, you need a fair bit of space for it. Yeah. So we had a walk in freezer that we could put it in and and that's, that was a, you know, once that was done, we were we were kind of finished our initial task.

MG: What did you think about that night when when the day was done and yeah, the hard work was over?

JEFF BOND: Well, I went and bought the team dinner at at a restaurant in Dawson and we celebrated again. I think we were still in a bit of shock at that point in time and then and the significance of the fine was certainly apparent, but it was interesting how it sunk in over the days that followed. I'd have to say in terms of its relevance, it's been it kind of crept into your soul, I'd have to say.

MG: What was it that was creeping into your soul? I mean, tell me about the significance.

JEFF BOND: Of this initially. Like the following day, we we first nation elders came back or came to the freezer to to bless the mammoth and a few other government officials. Grant Zazula was there. Everybody everybody was blessed at that ceremony. And they opened up the the the tarp and exposed the mammoth. There was like it was it was dead quiet. And for the most part. And there was some there was there was tears, there was gasps in the room. And I think people were like, are we are we really looking at this right now? Is this is this happening to all of us? And it was that kind of sense of wonder, oh, 40,000 years ago, this baby was walking in the stream bed and died tragically or died somehow buried tragically. Then it's it's remarkable that we get to see that now, you know, so it's just it's it's massively significant in terms of a window into the Pleistocene.

MG: It's really humbling in some ways. I think of it.

JEFF BOND: It is humbling. It's added a it's an element of spirituality almost to to the work we do. And thanks to the first nation for for treating it that way and introducing me to to, you know, that, that I guess that deeper and deeper way of of looking at, you know, something that is essentially, you know, a scientific find, but it's more than that.

MG: What about the scientific value of it? I mean, what do you think we can learn from this?

JEFF BOND: Oh, I think from I'm not an expert in mammoths, but we can certainly learn, I think a lot from from likely its DNA and in understanding mammoths in the Yukon you know more specifically we can I mean it's going to be you know part of a there's only a handful of these things on the planet. Right. That so so there's I think there's lots to learn about their morphology and they're, you know, potentially, you know, they're they're, you know, windows into maybe even their behaviour. I'm not sure. But there's, there's, there's lots we can learn there. I'm, I'm curious about their environment and what, what, what that look like and the, the all through July after this happened to to me, I was doing various other things for work and with family and, and all I could think about on the all I could think about. I was definitely desperate to get back to the site, though, and, and, and figure out the story that was behind her or her preservation and potentially her demise and and what happened there. So I was able to do that recently, which was been extremely rewarding.

MG: And what do we know about. I mean, there's talk that perhaps she got caught in in mud or muck or something. What do we know about how she died but also how she was?

JEFF BOND: So something we know I'd notice from the first photographs I took of the location of that. Initially, I wasn't exactly sure where it fallen out from exactly within sort of a two metre zone. But in in interviewing Travis later found it. He was able to clarify that with the photos I'd taken that first day and there was a a mud silty unit above a gravel and that that looked a lot like a landslide deposit, earth flow type deposit. And the gravel would represent a stream channel. And he said the mammoth was laying on the stream channel and it was underneath that mud. And so that became a real focus of our investigation. And that was super interesting. It was, as we pulled it, really trying to figure out how big it was, how big with the landslide was. And as we worked along this, cut this face and started excavating more and more of the landslide. I mean, it was it was it was super apparent that's what it was. There was there was clumps of vegetation in there that are in pristine condition. So this is one thing that I'm super excited about and in terms of the working of the section is when you have like not only is there a mammoth preserved in this process of of the landslide or the mud flowing you down the slope, you you also encapsulate the tundra, the steppe tundra, this grassland tundra environment at that time. And so we were able to recover perfectly preserved examples of the steppe tundra from 40 plus thousand years ago from the time and literally could have been stepped on by none show guy and now we have those in these in plastic bin some sort of wondering what to do with them but I hope that that one day that that they will be beside the mammoth in a, you know, a museum or something here in Dawson City. And it's say this is this is what the mammoth steppe was. This is the land in which that supported these beautiful animals. And it's it's when you look at the Yukon today, that part of the Yukon, all boreal forest or spruce trees everywhere, a lot of sphagnum moss. But at this time it was thick grasses, thick grasses. And and now we can see it. I'm holding I'm holding this time period, this, this, this, this piece of earth with the grass and the shrubs on it and everything and the leaf in amongst the grass. And I've got these samples now that are that show how rich the landscape was and food and some of the grasses even looked like they've been trimmed by horses or bison. I mean, they literally are they're just spectacular.

MG: It's like a time machine.

JEFF BOND: Yeah, exactly. You're literally in a time machine when you're in this unit. And I mean, and throughout the whole section there you the section spans probably 80,000 years in history in that particular valley, and the mammoths coming out right smack in the middle. And so you've got all this material below it that's, you know, a glacial period prior and then you've got this warm interval that the mammoths living in warm ish, and then you have another ice age after it in the interval above it. So it's it's an incredible record that we can learn from and and, you know, really put it in in some kind of context.

MG: There's a real desire and maybe urgency to start studying the mammoth. Mm hmm. And at the same time, there is a real thrust to respect the wishes of the indigenous community on which it was found and who have have real ties to to it. How do you how do you reconcile those two things?

JEFF BOND: Yeah. The the knee jerk reaction is to is to get on with some things that you want to learn about. Right. And, for example, getting a radiocarbon date of of the mammoth itself. And let's let's find out what that exact age is. And I'm sure there's there's a lot of I mean, there was emails coming in the following week after the announcement was made from scientists around the world wanting to, you know, offering their services basically, and to to study various aspects of it. And I really appreciate what they trying to Kuchins done in terms of they've taken a I think just a step back and they they they're consulting with the community and really trying to plan the best path forward and but taking it slow. And there is there is no immediate rush and I can respect that. So it's it's what they it's what they need to do. And I think it's it's probably best for Nun Cho ga too is to take some time and just reflect on who she is and make make the best decisions.

MG: It's the thing that brings you to tears. And I just wonder, like in the sweep of your career and in the work that you do, how you think you'll look back on this moment?

JEFF BOND: Yeah. It's a privilege. Yeah. I couldn't tell the story without breaking up afterwards. And even today, here we are two months later. And it's hard and I it's hard to know where those emotions come from. I've never been part of a geological discovery of this magnitude. I feel and and I feel very blessed to been able to help and get into the story a bit, you know, and try and figure it out and do that for the trying to question as well. This is icing on the cake at the moment for sure. I, I can't ask for anything bigger than this, to be honest, is, you know, working for the Geological Survey for the past 25 years. And I've had the privilege of working in pretty much every corner of the Yukon and have had wonderful experiences. And this is the best of them all for for sure. And, you know, it's a for me now, it's a story that I can take with me, I can share with, you know, my future grandchildren and and pass it on and tell them about it. And that's the treasure for me.

MG: Thank you very much for telling us the story.

JEFF BOND: Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for having me on the show.

MG: Jeff Bond is the head of surface geology with the Yukon Geological Survey. I spoke with him recently in an active gold mine just outside of Dawson City, Yukon. You heard Jeff mentioned the important role of the Tro'ndek Hwech'in in managing what happens next with Nun cho ga. Well, coming up after the break. My conversation with two people from that first nation, one who is tasked with making sure the mammoth is treated with care and respect as an ancestor. And the other one helped name the mammoth Nun cho ga in the Han language.

DARCY: [Indigenous speech] You're listening to The Current on CBC.

MG: Thanks to Darcy Willow in the Horn language at the Danoja Zho Cultural Centre in Dawson City for the warm welcome. I'm Matt Galloway and more from the Yukon in 90 seconds.

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What a frozen woolly mammoth means to a Yukon community – pt. 2

Guests: Debbie Nagano, Georgette McLeod

MG: I'm Matt Galloway. Then you're listening to The Current. It is a convenient spot to meet in Dawson City. The giant statue of a woolly mammoth on Front Street is hard to miss because it's the size of what an adult mammoth would have looked like back in the Ice Age. I'm here to talk to two people about another woolly mammoth, this one smaller and real.

DEBBIE: My name is Debbie Nagano. I work for my First Nation, which is Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin , and I'm the heritage director.

GEORGETTE: [Indigenous speech]

DEBBIE: So we go this way?

MG: Yeah. Is that okay?

DEBBIE: You want us to stop?

MG: We'll just wander down by the water. We head away from the statue and the road down toward the river.

DEBBIE: Oh, pretty, isn't it?

MG: You live here? No.

DEBBIE: It's. You're on the banks of the joining of two rivers, which is the Klondike River and the Yukon River. And why it's so significant to us is because of the salmon and the the river is was our main transportation route. So it's quite important to us.

MG: We're here to talk about the find of a baby woolly mammoth. Earlier this summer, geologist Jeff Bond was one of the first on the scene. If you missed my conversation with him in the last half hour, you can find it at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Jeff talked about what had to be done right away to the creature and the area that it was found in. This discovery is a significant one for the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin and Debbie and Georgette are involved in making sure it's treated with care. I started by asking Debbie about her first reaction to that find.

DEBBIE: It was something I couldn't believe. It took a long time to figure out and in my head of what it actually was. We've seen, you know, the wolf mammoth. I've seen it several times, touched it. And you feel a connection to it and the stories and bring in your ancestors in. And what were they doing? You know, just so many different stories within a matter of 5 seconds when they found new toga, baby mammoth, that was on Aboriginal Day. Even that was significant to us where we're celebrating down at our cultural centre and phone call came in. I still didn't really quite understand about it. I didn't talk to any of the elders and just started just to put things in perspective where it was and how it was found. We were going back and forth by phone calls and with [unintelligible]. He wasn't available at that time, but he helped organise the miner a few [unintelliglbe] workers. Jeff Bond He was quite important. Still is Grant Zullo And people that were here with the university. And things were just starting to click together by that evening and by the Jeff went out right away. And then I organised the elders to just to understand it of what was found.

MG: What was it like when you saw it for the first time?

DEBBIE: I didn't. And the impact of it is just unbelievable, amazing and spectacular. Also, too, because even the photos that I presented to the elders the next morning, because I didn't want it looked so real that it was like, it was the elders would have made a connection to it right away. And it's almost like one of your ancestors that you're making that connection to. And then so you don't want to surprise the elders at a moment's notice. So we got I got the Hwech'in elders together and a few of the staff members, and then we presented the photos. Even the photos had an impact on on the elders. After that meeting, which lasted probably about an hour, questions were asked and then we proceeded to go out and pull the baby mammoth out of the walk in freezer. It was covered with a tarp and we had a circle joined up by the minor from the Hwech'in elders, staff members, White, Teague and a few youth were present at that time, also too, consisting of probably about 14-15 individuals. The tarp was removed and you stood there for a long while, 4 to 5 minutes. No one said anything. The smell was the first reaction to it. And then you seen the actual eyebrows, the toes, the tail, the trunk. The skin was still the skin is still on it. So it's it's almost you're looking at you're trying to fathom the thought of or it's a baby elephant, but it just looks so looks so different than the elders started speaking and they were making just some shocking comments about it. And and then it even bring tears to a few of the people that were not circle. So it was it was simply just amazing.

MG: Shocking comments. What do you mean? I mean, tell me a bit more about that, if you can.

DEBBIE: When you have time to really listen to elders, they they would say a few words, but there were the impact to you is a lifetime. One elder said, this is amazing. And it will heal our people. Just to hear that, it's a lot of different meanings for for myself and for the individuals that were around that circle.

MG: You talked about it in some ways feeling like an ancestor itself. And we've heard that mentioned before. Jeff Bond talks about that as well. Can you tell me why you would use that word and what what that means to you.

DEBBIE: Oh, I think when you're a first nation person, you keep saying land is important to us, water is important to us. So the animals are part and to us, we can't survive without those three elements as humans, but as first nations people, we we make the connexion as they are our ancestors. That's how much we fully respect that animal, even though we are going to destroy it and kill it and eat it. It's it'll be part of us then. And the stories that this baby Mammoth could tell and and then you make the connection to our people walked with this animal. And so you you keep going back to how did the landscape look? What did it you know, how many of them were were there? How why did it get there? And you would say that if you found a burial of one of our members. So it's that close.

MG: Tell me about what happened at the site. I know that people have visited the site where the mammoth was was unearthed, and that's been incredibly significant as well.

DEBBIE: Yes, it was. So the next day after we seen the baby mammoth in the deep freezer, even not that it was an all day ceremony or it was more of a protocol that the elders wanted to make sure it was wrapped well that it and also the people at [unintelligible] all the how to look after it good in a respectful way. So that took all day and it ended with them wrapping [unintelligible] traditional native blanket. And then it was put back into the deep freezer. Discussion started happening right away is that we had to go out to the site so the elders were prepared to go. So it just lined up. Also two of them hiring three helicopters within the Dawson community. And next morning we went out to the location and we went out to the mine where it was found. Soon as we landed we had our chief, we had a representative from our council, we had representatives from our staff and a few youth and of course, the elders that were part of the day before ceremony. They wanted to go to that location to bless the location and fully understand and be thankful and to for it to be brought to us. That day, when it was found, there was some lightning, thunder that you have never, ever heard before, and that that is going to be part of the story, also, too, of why that happened. You had to move fast. There's some it was almost when they found it, it was raining, it was too warm. It was dying out. And even where we found the location was just the mud was just unbelievable. Just to get to get to it. Having our elders right close to where were Nun cho ga was found. We did a ceremony, a blessing, and we stood around there and we gathered together with the miner also, too. So it was it was it was quite a ceremony to be part of.

MG: Tell me about the naming of the mammoth and the process that goes into that and how that speaks to what Debbie was talking about when it comes to the significance of this one.

GEORGETTE: Well, the name of the baby Mammoth is Nun cho ga, which means big animal baby and nun cho, it is a large animal. Those are the words in the Han language. And the language that's used in this area that has been used for generations has been highly impacted. And we it's important for us to have a naming ceremony because it brings back a part of our culture, brings back our language. And it was pretty significant when I got the call. I was in Whitehorse at the time and I was taking part in the Indian Indigenous People's Day ceremony in Whitehorse. And so it was I had to act fast because I wasn't there. And and so I was able to make contact with other staff that I work with in Han language. And they were able to go and visit with the elders who we work with most closely with. And that would be Percy Henry and his wife, Mable Henry and Angie Joseph Frere. These were some of the first elders that we contacted to be able to come up with a name for Nun cho ga. And that was chosen. That name was chosen because we don't have a name for Mammoth in the English language. We just know it, know of them as big animals. And there could have been a name that existed generations ago, but it no longer exists anymore. So it seemed to make sense to be able to name this animal Nun cho ga and also had to recognise and honour that it was a baby. And so they wanted to ensure that that was included as part of the name. And so when I was contacted about the name and the elders supported it from people who went to go see those elders, we went ahead and it took just a matter of hours really from the time that Debbie contacted me that day to the time that I was able to do enough of it to before I had to go to the Indigenous Peoples Day ceremony. So it was a highlight to me of the day, really. As much as I enjoy taking part in activities, it was it was certainly significant to be able to immediately come up with a name for Nun cho ga because we want to honour the whole language of this area as well.

MG: How do you see the significance of this find? I mean, some of the people that we've spoken to, they become incredibly emotional when they talk about this and they can't explain where the emotion comes from, but they feel something is that they feel a weight around this. How do you see the significance of this find?

GEORGETTE: I think personally, I think it's because it is a baby, because it was a precious life that walked these lands, you know, 30 to 30000 years ago. And and to have our connection, to see a life being born and to be able to be preserved the way it was with all of its skin and its trunk and every part of it. I think that's what hit people's the most people the most is because it was a baby. And and that's that was really significant to the elders, too, when they talked about it, like, this is a baby, this was a living being and we have to honour it because it it helps us to recognise that life, you know, we're living a life and just we, we can connect to something that is small and precious.

MG: After the find Debbie the community, in some ways took control of this, the understanding, the significance of this and has made a lot of work to try to ensure that that this you know as community first that it's driven by the community. Tell me more about that and why that's important for the community to be driving this process, given how significant the find is.

DEBBIE: I think it's important and quite different of the way it has been done before. Right away the elders took control and I don't like using control or ownership to to to this being because it's not. We're trying to keep away from that scientific part of it. I mean, we will use the scientific knowledge of the individuals that have it, but we've always got to remember to keep that respect of this being strong and connected to the elders. We always have to handle it in a respectful way, so we didn't want it to be looked at and removed from our community and taken to a place that we will never see it again. The connection was just too great and too powerful, and the elders always want to make sure that if it's used in any way that it will benefit Tr'ondek Hwech'in members, it could be. And in all different departments and fields. But the youth need to understand the importance of it also too. And hopefully that bridge to the elders and the youth will be made.

MG: Can you tell me more about that? Because I know and Jeff talked about this as well, that in the days after this discovery, this was news around the world. Scientists from around the world were saying, let us have a look at it. Let us let us explore. We there are questions that we have that can be answered by looking at this. How do you strike that balance between what they're looking for and, as you say, the desire of the elders to ensure that it's not exploited, if I can put it that way.

DEBBIE: Yes, it's it'll be different. That's the difference between this mammoth that we're going to try to be respectful of it, where we want to share it with the world. It's something that Tr'ondek Hwech'in question stories. We'll make the connexion to the mammoth. And that's the story that needs to be told. And we want to keep it within our community as as much as we could. We've purchased the deep freezer for it, eventually will have a facility for it. And the connection again, it'll be more like educational and hopefully it'll be the connection to our culture and our traditions also too. So we can't do that if if Nun cho ga is removed from the community. There's a lot of decisions that still need to be made and how and why she will be removed is still going to be debated and committee is going to be established that that the majority of the elders will be telling us, as well as for me and all the staff of Tronic.

MG: And that'll be a process that's driven by the question.

DEBBIE: Yes, yeah. Yeah. With the help of lot of YTG paleontologist and and workers also too because they have the expertise and if we if we need them, I'm sure that they'll be available for us.

MG: How does that speak to a conversation that obviously is very alive here and has been going on for a while around self-determination and self-governance?

DEBBIE: I think, you know, we're we're in the process of of trying to fulfil our Heritage Act, different protocols, guidelines that have been developed for the past 20 years. It's time now that we start taking ownership of some of these item items where we're not, you know, again, we got to work with the miners and we've got to work with the people that are out there that are on the land, including our people. So it's a good time we now for for us to all work together.

MG: You said something just finally earlier on in the conversation around one of the shocking things that the elders said when they saw her, and that was that this could help heal the people. What do you think, when you think of that now? I mean, what goes through your mind what could be the potential of this find when it comes to healing?

DEBBIE: There's so many departments and initiatives that we work as for First Nations people. But when we we've got to try and bring that back and try to instil more pride within our community so that when the youth do go out on the land, they hold their heads up a little, little higher. And that we that we start teaching them their traditional knowledge and culture and and what it is to be stewards of our land for within our traditional territory.

MG: And that this discovery can really help and that you think.

DEBBIE: It could be a conduit to it. I think as a heritage director, I'll use only I'll use it if that's what it takes to, you know, to bring out more healing, more wellness, more lands issues, more policies and and guidelines that need to be pushed ahead in a more timely manner than then. That's what my mandate is from my council.

MG: Georgette, what about for you? I mean, again, language is a huge part of that healing as well.

GEORGETTE: Yes. Because this is an endangered language. We want to be able to give as much visibility to the language and to, you know, naming our naming things in our community, including people, you know, places and and animals that we we find in in our traditional territory, like noon yoga, you know, the the previous find with the with the pup, the wolf pack. We've named that one too, and his name is JR. And that means Wolf Horn and you know, so we want to be able to continue to give that chance to help push the language forward and to have it visible in our in and around the community and around the world, in particularly with Nun cho ga. Like you said, it's it's been recognised worldwide and I feel it brings new life, new life to the work that happens around noon. Yoga, you know, right, from working with other officials, working with the palaeontologists, you know, and working with the miners. I think giving it a name, too, gives it definitely gives it new life. It gives me new life and vibrancy to continue to work on this language. We only have we only work with one elder who is the last speaker of our home language in our community. And there's only a handful of speakers left in Eagle who come from Eagle, Alaska. So you know this as much as we can utilise the language in places and and in naming naming things in our community, I think that this is just one more thing to contribute to that, to that journey of revitalisation of the language.

MG: I mean, it's a remarkable thing when you think about it, that this thing, this being that that was hidden away is suddenly available again, something that we should have never seen in some ways we couldn't have seen is not present. There's something remarkable about that.

GEORGETTE: It truly is a remarkable gift, really, to to everyone in in the north and around the world to because this is the first baby mammoth found in North America. You know, there's been other baby mammoths found in other parts of the world. But this is pretty significant because it's the first on our homelands to have something like this. And, you know, we certainly have great reverence for, you know, our land and our waters and our animals. But, I mean, this just kind of kind of brings it all together and really brings a huge highlight to, you know, the things that happen in the north and how special things like this happen when when they do happen.

MG: It's really great to talk to you both. Thank you very much.

GEORGETTE: Mussee.

DEBBIE: Massee cho.

MG: Debbie Nagano is heritage director for the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin in Dawson City, Yukon. Georgette McLeod is a human language administrator. For photos, more on this discovery and to hear all of the interviews that we featured today, head to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. That is The Current for this Tuesday. q is up next on CBC Radio one. We've been talking about the discovery of the baby woolly mammoth for the past hour on this programme. Before we go, one final stop in beautiful Dawson City, just down the bumpy road from the site of the active gold. Mine were all these fossils were being found. There's a house on a bluff that overlooks the river. And outside of that house, piled on picnic tables and on the ground are bones. Hundreds and hundreds of bones collected this summer. The palaeontologist, Elizabeth Hall, will eventually bag those bones up and take them back to Whitehorse.

SOUNDCLIP

Ideally, it would be nice to have them out of the sunlight just in a shelter logic or, you know, in the house, maybe even under this picnic table, because you can see that they're bleaching out readily and they're starting to weather. So they're deteriorating.

MG: All those bones have been picked up by an amateur paleontologist and she gets our last word today. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to the current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

DIANA: I think the best clones I've found here are the sheep, the horse hoof that I'm showing you. I'm Diana Phillips. I am partial owner with my husband of Hester Creek and Independence Creek.

MG: Tell me about collecting these bones.

DIANA: I love it. I like when the girls come over the paleontologist and tell me what everything is. And through years of finding them, I've been able to distinct what ones are and what ones aren't. Best find was the Arctic ground squirrel that they did the ultrasound or the CT scan of, and it was awesome.

MG: How old is it?

DIANA: I'm not too sure. 20000.

MG: 20000 years. Do you have, I mean, aside from the...

DIANA: Woolly mammoth. The mammoth, yep. Finding the woolly mammoth. A couple of years ago or last year, I think it was, we found a full skull of a horse. The ancient horse. We were finding up in Independence here, up to probably ten bison heads a day coming out of the permafrost. It was awesome. And then we found one that was up there. That was our first year here with hair and everything on it all curled up in the permafrost. Was it neat?

MG: What was it like to find that exciting?

DIANA: Except for at that time we weren't associated too well with the girls from Whitehorse. Apparently allergists and left messages, but we tried to preserve everything that we could find. We grabbed the hair and stuff like that and took lots of pictures. It's a fun way of life. I mean, my husband would probably prefer the gold, but I prefer the bones. Every day we go down there, every day we go numerous times down there. And especially if the monitors are running and we look and see what we can find that appears. You know, what I'm going to do with this is I am going to bag this all up for you nice and neatly, get it out of the sun so it's not being hurt by the sun. And you guys are going to take it all down to Whitehorse and get back to me on some of the good things we find.

VOICE: Thank you, Diana.

DIANA: You're welcome. Always look forward to you guys as visits. You know that.

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Tuesday September 6, 2022 Full Transcript

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