Journey to the Ice Age

**Journey to the Ice Age** is the 9th episode in Season 3 of Expedition Unknown.

## Plot Synopsis

To find a viable sample of mammoth DNA, Gates retrieves bone samples from the massive Batagay crater, then journeys far upriver to a site in the Siberian wilderness where tusk hunters carve out troves of bones from the permafrost. He takes the DNA samples back to the lab and watches the process of treating and testing the specimens. At long last, he views the DNA results to find out if the woolly mammoth will walk the earth again.

## Summary

At the Batagay Crater, Josh takes DNA samples from two mammoth bones and a tusk. Josh, Alexei, and Semyon go to the city of Batagay and meet Ivan, a mammoth ivory carver. They meet Ivan's tusk dealer, Mikhail, who gets ivory from a sight called Yunugen. They meet Insung Hwang, a biologist, and then head on boats up the Yana River to Yunugen. Along the way, one of the boat engines briefly stops and restarts.

They are let in by ivory hunters at a Yunugen campsite where they stay for the night. The next day, they head into the heart of Yunugen and in a dangerous and collapsing tunnel. There, Semyon finds mammoth excrement, the second intact one ever found. As they make their way through the site they find a mammoth neck bone, a collar of a woolly rhinoceros, and a well preserved and completely intact mammoth tusk.

The next day, they go to the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk. They prep the samples for testing and Alexei shows him specimens they've previously found. There is a mammoth trunk (the first whole one ever found,) leg, and stomach. They find short strands of DNA and then the mammoth carcass reveals a DNA sample with more than 2000 base pairs. It's the best sample ever found to date but they have yet to find a full strand.

## Final Words

"The woolly mammoth was once the dominant species on Earth, the original too-big-to-fail but facing a rapidly changing world and with a new predator in town, the mammoth didn't stand a chance. As I've explored the melting remains of Siberia's permafrost, it isn't hard to draw a straight line between their fate and our own. Technology is hurling us into a future where science fiction is fast becoming fact. To me, reviving the mammoth seems like a worthy enough endeavour but the question is, what kind of world would a cloned mammoth be born into? On my journey, I came face-to-face with the results of a man-made environmental catastrophe and then bore witness to more destruction in progress. I'm in awe of the dedicated scientists travelling to the edge of the world to find elusive DNA but if we plan to revive the dead, we've got to make an equal effort to preserve the living. We are melting the coldest regions of our planet and our obsession with ivory may mean the extinction of living elephants and other endangered species. The woolly mammoth couldn't adapt but hopefully, we can. The future of its species, and of our own, may depend on it."

- Josh Gates

## Notes & Trivia

* *This is where you can put notes and trivia, anything that is interesting or strange can be included here*

## Quotes

* "Fairly confident I've just woken up in a Siberian Wes Anderson movie."
* "Can somebody cue up a good "Unchained Melody" knockoff?"
* "I feel like Demi Moore in "Ghost" right now."
* "Look we're gonna send a party back in the spring for you guys. Okay? You just gotta get through the winter."
* "Here's a little travel tip - don't drink with Russians. They will outpace you."

## References

1. ↑ https://travel.home.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/travel/fullrights/2017/3/4/TEXU306H\_Woolly-Mammoth\_247642\_896482.1438456.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.1280.960.suffix/1491594003645.jpeg