REST AND SING - PHASE 5

REST AND SING - PHASE 5

April 14, 1997

The work is now at the point where I will begin to finish it off part by part.

The ravens and wolves are shaped and contoured to their finished size. The details will be added now with the smaller bits and a micro-motor tool made by SCM. It's a wonderful little tool that allows great flexibility of movement, so important for the finer details.

I've also been out photographing raven and wolf prints. (I plan to carve the prints into the lower portion of the antler.) I found a great combination of prints at the local dump. One set actually had a huge wolf print next to a raven print! I had thought that a raven print might be about two thirds the size of a wolf print, prior to this chance encounter. In fact, the raven print was about one half the size of the wolf print.

Yesterday, Faro's Conservation Officer hosted a tour of the local Fannin Sheep population. Unique in the world, this population is a combination of the white Dall Sheep, found in most parts of the Yukon, and the Stone Sheep, found primarily in northern British Columbia. Faro falls along a kind of border zone between the two populations, making for a whole new kind of sheep! There are other populations of Fannin Sheep, but none so close to a human population. Though the sheep were some distance away, we saw them clearly through binoculars and spotting scopes. The rams grazed and slept on a different hillside from the ewes and lambs. Magnificent!

On the return leg of the trip we talked about ravens. I mentioned some of my observations and received a few more observations from others. Apparently, ravens will play aerobatic follow-the-leader or tag and actually pass objects back and forth from beak to beak while in the middle of these crazy stunts! Someone once saw this done with a shiny silver object.

Fascinating creatures - I wonder if anyone has done an intense study of the raven in its native habitat?

This week has been wonderful in another respect. I received five more commissions for work. Thanks go out to the commissioners - you know who you are!

See you next time,

Shane

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