The Taimyr Peninsula in northern Russia is one of the most remote regions on earth. Little known by the world outside prior to 1997, it suddenly became the focus of international attention after a 9-year-old boy discovered a nearly-intact woolly mammoth frozen into an old creek bed.     French "mammoth-hunter" Bernard Buigues organized a massive international operation to recover the mammoth in 1998 and 1999, and at each major stage of the operation, commemorative envelopes were printed and stamped at appropriate locations. The covers below are some of those that were available from Polar Circle Expeditions, the company which handled many of the logistical parts of the project.     For a great deal more information about the woolly mammoth, and the Jarkov Mammoth specifically, click here.

Click on each of the covers to greatly enlarge it

October 29, 1998

October 17, 1999 Transport to Khatanga

September 7, 2000 Postmarked at Khatanga.

December 22-23, 1999 Paris Exhibition Postmarked at The Louvre, Paris. The photo on the cover shows the block of ice with the mammoth still in it, at Khatanga.

The postcard and covers above are from the collection of Murray Lundberg