Last week I went to the Alaska Marine Science Symposium 2017 meetings in Anchorage. I’ve never gone to those meetings before, but we were presenting two posters on finds from Walakpa.
One was on the results of the necropsy of a mummified seal found in a 1944 ice cellar. I was excited about it because it was pre-bomb with a pretty tight date and therefore helpful for refining radiocarbon correction factors. It turns out to be the first mummified seal reported from anywhere outside the Dry Valleys of Antarctica! Who knew?
The second was presenting some preliminary results of investigations on a polar bear skull which eroded from Walakpa, and was recovered and turned in by Kenneth Brower. It turned out to be somewhat unusual in shape, as well as being really big (maybe the 4th largest ever measured). That bear must have been HUGE!
Out of Ice and Time 