The newly discovered piece tells the story of an encounter with Indians in Tierra Del Fuego. A similar piece by the same scrimshander – Pte James Bute of the HMS Beagle – sold at auction for over 40,000 pounds as recently as last month. Only five other examples of Bute’s work, which chronicled one of history’s most important and momentous discovery expeditions, are known to exist.
Along with the scrimshaw, several letters from the original owner to Darwin himself were discovered.
Features include: “matte ruby red paintjob, gold-plated bulletproof windows, 22′ Kremlin Red Star bulletproof wheels, tungsten and white gold gauges decorated with diamonds and rubies, an additional outside kevlar coating, custom Vertu mobile phone with a panic button, and, yes, a ‘whale penis leather’ interior.”
Paul is a nine year old fourth grader at Ipalook Elementary School and “is very into his culture. He loves to go whaling with his uncle Qulliuq Pebley, who is the Captian of Panigeo Crew”
“The family was overjoyed in tears when they heard that their 9-year-old Paul harpooned the 32′ 7″ whale.”
Here’s the thing, though…I want you to go find a map of Alaska, look at it, and point to the place where you’d think human beings would be LEAST likely to live. And that’s where Barrow, Alaska is…it’s one of the northernmost cities in the entire world, and the northernmost in the US. Temperatures drop below freezing pretty much every day of the year there, and only get above freezing about 100 days per year.
It’s also a desert, averaging less that five inches of precipitation per year.
According to wikipedia: “On November 18 or 19 the sun goes down, and remains below the horizon for about 65 days until it re-appears, normally on January 22 or January 23.”
In the photo above, some albatrosses follow a killer whale, a previously undocumented behavior – although, the birds have been known to follow fishing boats and schools of tuna.
The Cook Inlet Beluga Whale population is the lowest it 15 years, down from 653 in 1994 to 321 this year.
One of the theories attempting to explain the decline is noise pollution from Anchorage Port, a busy shipping hub undergoing a lot of new construction. It’s believed that the beluga whales are sensitive to the commercial and construction noise. At four points along the port, hired whale watchers keep their eyes open for belugas, and if any are spotted, construction comes to a halt.
The port construction project won’t be completed until 2014.
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