North America, Point Hope, Alaska, ca. 1931 CE. A mounted upper part of a walrus skull, including two enormous tusks. The skull is mounted on a wooden backing that reads "Alaska, 1931". Size of skull with tusks: 89" H x 10.75" W (226.1 cm x 27.3 cm); size of each tusk (approximately): 26" H x 2.2" W (66 cm x 5.6 cm); size of skull mounted on backing plaque: 101" H x 13.95" W (256.5 cm x 35.4 cm); size of accompanying plaque: 8.2" H x 10.25" W (20.8 cm x 26 cm).

An accompanying plaque reads, "Walrus head obtained at Point Hope Alaska in 1931 by George M. Gordon while at anchor aboard the ship Cutter Northland."

The walrus is one of the most iconic Arctic animals, instantly recognizable with prominent tusks, whiskers, and bulky, blubber-filled bodies. This example is Odobenus rosmarus divergens, the Pacific walrus, who can grow to more than 2000 kg (4400 lbs). They live in the shallow waters of continental shelves and are highly social animals, often found bellowing and snorting at one another. Part of their social standing is determined by the size of their tusks, and this fellow whose tusks are preserved here would have been a prominent member of his group. Walruses also use their tusks to haul themselves along ice or rock. Males sometimes use their tusks for fighting and have been known to stab each other with them, especially in competition for mates.

Point Hope has long been a place where humans hunted walrus. Located on a spit of land that juts out into the Chukchi Sea, it is famous for a large archaeological site called Ipiutak, which was the center of the Ipiutak culture (ca. 200 BCE to 800 CE), whose people subsisted on a diet heavy in walrus meat and whose houses, when excavated, contained evidence for weapons and tools made from walrus tusk.

The USCGC Northland was a cruising class of gunboat designed for Arctic operations that served in World War II - interestingly, the last cutter built for the Coast Guard equipped with a sailing rig. Each May from 1929 to 1938 she patrolled the Bering Sea, performing a variety of tasks - carrying the mail, gathering military intelligence, performing surveys about timber and wildlife in the area, and, apparently, collecting walrus skulls - before being refitted to patrol Greenland after the invasion of Denmark by the Germans in May 1940.



Provenance: Ex-Vaught Collection, Atlanta, GA

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#120740

Skull has dark patina; one of the interior teeth is loose but does not seem in danger of falling out.