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Photograph by Erin Harvey |
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A whiff of walrus |
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Playing possum with walruses in Alaskas Togiak National
Wildlife Refuge for the
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
assignment on refuges,
photographer Joel Sartore,
left, could have used a clothespin. Some of the worst
breath Ive ever smelled, shudders Joel, who also
accused the walruses of loud snoring. Their eyesight is
terrible, but their sense of smell is good, so I had to stay downwind
(on their stinky side) whenever I was close.
Joel got even closer to the creatures when local Eskimo hunters
offered him a hunk of walrus flesh to cook for lunch. I
knew it would be a bit on the chewy side when I couldnt
cut it with a sharp serrated knife, he says. In
fact, even after being cooked, it had the consistency of wood.
Locals say that its best to boil it for about six hours.
I didnt have enough Sterno for that, so I fried it. It
was tougher than an old musk ox, which I also tried there,
and I worked up a sweat trying to cut through its piano-wire tendons.
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Photograph by Michael S. Yamashita |
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Nyet, Charlie |
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Nyet problem, in the Kurils, usually means
you have a big one, says writer Charlie Cobb, left,
who heard the phrase often while waiting an entire day on Kamchatka
for a helicopter to take him to Paramushir, northernmost of the
Kurils, an archipelago in the North Pacific. That morning the
mayor of the district had assured him that the chopper would arrive.
The weather is clear, the mayor had insisted, despite
the drizzle. Nyet problem.
Evening approached, and Charlie still had no transportation.Nyet
problem, said another would-be passenger, who had been
waiting three days. The sun was setting by the time the helicopter
finally arrived.
Charlie and his translator looked at the chopper with sinking
hearts. A relic of the Soviet military, the machine was already
full with 25 people and their bags, so he and the other new passengers
constituted an overload. It was not permissible, officials explained,
to board additional passengers at the islands official
airfield. But, nyet problem. At the unofficial airfield, on the
other side of the island. . .
Charlie made his flight with no problem.
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