A river cuts through Siberia's Yakutia region. Chapple reports that there were three tusker sites along a 120-kilometer stretch of this river alone. #

Tuskers use powerful pumps and hoses to strip away soil and burrow into the underlying permafrost, sometimes peeling away entire hillsides. #

Pumps, designed for firefighting, fill the valley with exhaust smoke as they draw water from the river. #

In warm soil, bones would rot away within a decade. But tusks and bones like this one can survive tens of thousands of years once locked into the permafrost. #

Some tuskers use the excavating power of the pressurized water to bore deep underground, others carve enormous caverns under the frozen ground. #

A tusker wipes mud from a mammoth tusk just discovered in a hillside. #

A woolly rhinoceros skull is used to help prop up a kettle. #

Mosquitoes are a near constant plague. Only the coldest mornings offer an hour or two of relief. #