LOCKED HORNS - START

January 1, 2008

Stephen Frost Sr. found this set of locked caribou antlers frozen into the ice of the Porqupine River. Male caribou often spar in the fall and sometimes become fatally locked together, when they collide with such force that the antlers become intertwined in such a way that they cannot separate.

This set of locked antlers were chipped out of the ice by Stephen and his sons and found a place in his front yard in Old Crow, Yukon. During the shooting of a documentary about the conflict between the Vuntut Gwitchin and the US Government over the development of the 1002 Lands of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, the producers noticed the antlers and featured them in the documentary as a metaphor for the conflict. They titled the documentary "Locked Horns", after this locked set of caribou antlers.

The Porqupine Caribou Herd migrates to the 1002 Lands each spring to birth their calves. The land is perfect for giving birth to calves that have a chance to grow unmolested by mosquitoes or predators. They have returned to the 1002 Lands, near the Arctic Ocean, every year for thousands of years. The US government would like to develop these lands to extract the oil that lies underneath. Trouble is, the development would force the caribou to calve elsewhere, increasing exponentially their infant mortality, putting the entire herd in jeapordy. The Vuntut Gwitchin people of Old Crow have been subsisting off the caribou of the Porqupine Caribou Herd for over 10,000 years, so the oil development would also jeapordize their way of life.

In 2004, Stephen gave the antlers to me in hopes that I might carve something symbolic of this conflict.

Till next time,

Shane