Gathering Nome's other gold: The gossamer fleece of musk ox

NOME — I step from the tundra into an alder thicket like a blind man off a curb into rush hour traffic. Although it is quiet in here, except for the whine of mosquitoes, my hackles rise. Was that a branch snapping up ahead?

When the ocean's horizon blushes with midnight sun and shadows grow long and lean, this is one place you don't want to be: dense brush where grizzly bears feed or nap and don't like being surprised. Unfortunately, this is also where Nome's other gold — musk ox underwool — can be found. To relieve their June itch, shucking their shag to prevent overheating, musk oxen take to the bushes where branches and trunks strip them of their winter insulation. The dark humps you glimpse now and again in the clearings can belong to one or the other animal.

The gossamer fleece, which Natives call qiviut (pronounced "kiv-ee-ute"), is eight times warmer than sheep's wool, keeping the creatures cozy at 50-below. Ranging from off-white to beige, smoke-gray and chocolate-brown, it is lustrous, soft as baby's breath and sells in stores for hard cash: $100 per spun ounce. Wet feet or bug bites seem a small price to pay for such riches. As browsers, musk oxen seek thickets that clog creek beds and ditches, depressions into which melting permafrost drains; as suckers of heat-generating life, mosquitoes seek the same windless spots for their sorties.

[Luxury yarn almost went extinct]

Propelled by my forager genes, I carefully follow a trail of dung pellets and crushed vegetation; silky hunks and skeins snagged on branches are flagging the mother lode: a foot-wide mop, like a badly made wig. I am poised, alert and fully alive, in tune with my inner predator. Yet despite all the adrenaline coursing, this is still not considered a "masculine" pastime here. Real men go out and shoot the beast with the prizefighter physique — though I hear it's as challenging as dynamiting fish in a barrel.

The introduction of firearms by Yankee whalers at the end of the 19th century quickly extinguished musk oxen in Alaska's Arctic. They just let you walk up close, and if they feel threatened, line up in a bulwark of curved, embossed horns in front of their calves. Marksmen can fell them one by one, whole groups facing death bison-like, with the composure of statues. Several herds have been loitering around Nome in recent summers, wildlife officials say, to avoid marauding bears. Hiding among us, as it were, as hunting them close to town is illegal.

Near the AC Value Center store, they rest and digest, or play King of the Hill on an outcrop the dirt-bikers also love to shred. But the wool gathered there is no good; it's dusty and matted like dreadlocks from being trampled. It would be much easier to post an ad at our online exchange site, Nome Announce, or the grocery store, and buy a whole hide from a Nimrod. Then I, or my wife, could comb out the fur, separating the qiviut from the unwanted coarse guard hair.

My wife Melissa — we got married recently, in a bare-bones ceremony at the courthouse after grabbing a witness at the post office — this is for her more than for myself. She is a "wildcrafter," turning the land's bounty into various products. Increasingly popular in the Pacific Northwest, where ecosystems are prolific, and in rural Alaska, where supply always has been an issue, wildcrafting is fashionable once again, bookended to subsistence hunting or paleo-diets. On our windowsill sit Mason jars with dark alchemic fluids — homemade lichen dyes for this kind of wool. One-gallon Ziplocs of berries are taxing our freezer, preserved for pies, sauces and jams.

Driving through town, my wife takes mental notes on the musk oxen's hangouts to track them the minute she gets off work; we've already missed this year's salmon run.

Competition is stiff. Wildcrafters always watch for cars pulled over on dirt roads.

Melissa is teaching herself spinning with a hand spindle. Her output includes knitted smoke rings, cowls, hats, scarves and shawls. Qiviut does not keep a shape well enough to be made into sweaters. It's more of a feminine fiber, fit for lacy designs, I am told.

My spouse, clearly, is hardwired for gathering; I, on the other hand, lack any inclination to hunt. But I cannot escape the "something-for-nothing" mindset, and being in nature brings its own rewards: a bird's nest cushioned with qiviut; white-headed ptarmigan flashing lipstick-red eyebrows; a weasel popping from its burrow like a furry jack-in-the-box. And on a great day: bleating musk ox calves or head-butting bulls. I get into the spirit of things, dream of sneaking up on them with a rake to rid them of their burden, that downy, stifling discomfort. A win-win situation, I'd say. Collecting next to my wife, I indulge in some friendly competition. I once again feel the flush of our courtship, like a bowerbird or fish-bearing tern, when I offer my mate a plastic bag bulging with qiviut. She never was one for flowers.

Riding my bike into town, I sometimes — too often — see musk ox pelts rotting on the porches of people who don't make time for combing them out. In this place, taking voraciously from the land is an esteemed tradition. Gravel pits, tailings ponds and rusty mining machinery scar the landscape, drab reminders of past glories. Wool picking might not be as manly as gold-digging or re-enacting Pleistocene slaughter — but it clothes the family. I cherish its quiet luxuries and the thought that this way, the beasts get to keep their hides.

First published in EarthLines magazine. Michael Engelhard is author of the essay collection "American Wild: Explorations from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Ocean" and of "Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon." He now lives in Fairbanks, where musk oxen only roam behind fences on a former homestead, the University of Alaska's Large Animal Research Station.