When the word "beachcombing" comes up, most people think of the ocean. On many of the Alaskan interior rivers (the Yukon, the Kuskokwim, and many others), however, the beachcombing can be rewarding. Pleistocene bones are fairly common, including 10-foot woolly mammoth tusks. I found a few tusks, but always sold them, usually to pay for airplane maintenance. However, through the years, I did keep a few smaller bones.


This is a petrified woolly mammoth toe bone.



This is a molar tooth, also from a woolly mammoth. The grinding surface is toward the camera and the roots are hidden in the back.

Over the years, I found a lot of bones from suprabison, camels, woolly rhinos, and a few tidbits from cave bears and sabre-toothed cats. In Whitehorse, Yukon, there's a fantastic museum, the Museum of the Pleistocene, that's got many great displays of 600-lb(?) beavers and other Pleistocene critters.

That’s really cool.

That's very interesting. A 600 lb beaver?

I can just see the caveman trapper settings around a fire trying to figure out a way to harvest them.

Very nice collections you have there, Jack.

I enjoy my mammoth tusk portion and wood pen holder stand that you sent to me , on my work desk. It is always amazing to me how fossilized bone , ivory and wood can look so much like polished stone.

Thank you for the share .

Fair number of places around Alaska to comb for bones, etc. Used to be people who made a living looking for, buying, selling, etc. Betting you knew Roland Quimby. He used to fly around in his cub and look for bones/tusks. He would come to Nome and go out to St. Lawrence to buy stuff.
About the best place in the state to find stuff is the Palisades on the Yukon R. Can't do that anymore, legally!

mt -

Yeah, I knew Quimby. Interesting guy. You can't even pick up beach-found bones now?

Technically, any fossil stuff on govt. land is illegal I think. Fed and state. Private land is OK. Below mean high water on rivers, ocean would be state. Not much enforcement from the state. Lots of stuff found below mean high water.