The Musk Ox Project

2 Million Years in the Making

Story and Photos by Linda N. Cortright.

Mark Austin wakes up every morning to the sight of 81 prehistoric mammals burping, belching, and butting heads. For 30 years the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, Alaska, has seen the best of times and the worst of times. A mere trifle in this animal’s 2 million years history.

He smiles and reaches for the thermostat dial on the wall, a totally effortless—not to mention silent—gesture.

It’s a few minutes before seven o’clock. I can no longer postpone the inevitable and reluctantly emerge from the bedcovers. I put on a bathrobe, a pair of heavy socks, and a blue cashmere scarf, tied tight. I contemplate donning my fur hat, but the visual is too ridiculous to imagine, let alone the prospect of startling my host when I walk down the stairs. Quietly, or at least as quietly as I can manage in unfamiliar surroundings, I navigate the steps. Judging by how hard the winds blew during the night, I wouldn’t be surprised to find snowdrifts caressing the sofa. But both the floor and furniture are unscathed, providing a clear path to the woodstove.

Within minutes Mark is standing in the doorway (also in a bathrobe, minus the socks and scarf) and asks if I’m cold.

Mark Austin standing by his office which he keeps heated to a balmy 58 F in the winter months.

“Maybe just a little,” I whisper as clouds of steam sweep from my breath.

At my home in Maine, I am accustomed to filling a woodstove. But this is Alaska, and the stove is built for Alaskan-sized logs. I bend over to “toss” a few in and realize I would do better with a catapult. Any effort not to wake Mark, my host, is destroyed as several logs go banging across the living room floor.

“I’m so sorry if I woke you,” I said.

Not long after the thermostat tweak, the house begins to warm…slightly. Mark and I are sitting at the breakfast table sipping coffee, our eyes fixed to the window. Less than 50 yards from our perch, a group of 20-monthold musk oxen kids are just beginning to wake-up.

Mark Austin has one of the most extraordinary jobs on the planet! He lives with his wife Kim and daughter Isela, at The Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, Alaska, founded by John Teal in the early 1960s.

Mark Austin hand-feeding a few musk ox babies as part of the farm's domesitication program.

The musk oxen are a part of Mark’s family, a fact his wife has generously come to accept (she did agree, after all, to hold their wedding in the middle of one of the musk ox pastures). The animals all have names (every year there’s a different naming theme, from spices to trees), and they have distinct personalities—which at 18 months are in full force, from the proverbial troublemaker to the insatiable flirt.

Every morning Mark looks out onto the world’s largest herd of musk oxen in captivity: nearly 80 animals. The only way to see what Mark and I can in the wild is to build an igloo (with a large picture window) somewhere on the frozen tundra and hope a herd of musk oxen wanders by.

The opportunity to watch these animals for even a few minutes, let alone an entire day, is beyond compare. And even though Mark has been running the farm for nearly four years, the novelty hasn’t worn off.

It is the end of February, and over 10 hours of daylight now shines upon the Matanuska Valley. Dawn slowly unfolds, and the musk oxen wake up sluggishly, with one exception. Wasabi is wide awake and itching for some fun.

After a brief but intense charge, Wasabi has a change of heart.