King of the North

by Joe Tucciarone

Crowned by fire in a land of ice, this imperial king of the north stands sentinel amidst his frozen domain. Although the land is locked in a great Ice Age, the Pleistocene sun drives an auroral firestorm through the northern skies, casting an eery glow on this giant mammal.

Mammoths still roamed North America as recently as ten thousand years ago. Their extinction on the continent is thought to have been hastened by Ice Age peoples who hunted them for their hides and meat. Yet on Wrangel Island dwarf mammoths survived until just four thousand years ago, which puts them into the time of recorded history!