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My interest in Noah's Ark goes back to my childhood. I've always been fascinated by the biblical story and used to dream about going on an expedition to find it. As a young boy, I recall watching a television program with my dad about explorers that had been searching for the ark and it excited me. This interest waned somewhat until years later when the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" came out during my senior year of high school. In the ensuing years at college, I began to read numerous books on the legendary vessel, the flood and books on prophecy. Although I had been a Christian since I was about eight years old, my walk with the Lord was just beginning to get serious during that time.

With college degrees in hand, my high school sweetheart and I, now married, relocated to the Pacific Northwest and began looking for work in our field (computer science). Fast-forward about five years to a pivotal event in my life. I began to do some soul-searching after growing discontent with the church we were attending. One of my hobbies is woodcarving and I was thrilled to meet a Native American from the Haida tribe (renown woodcarvers from the Queen Charlotte Islands of B.C.). I signed up for a class and was unaware of how this would revive my interest in Noah's Ark.

The instructor of the woodcarving class told us an ancient story that had been handed down through the generations. I won't repeat the story of the Raven and the Whale here, but it teaches respect for the earth's resources. We were given the task of incorporating the symbols of this mythical story into a mask. I started with a dirty yellow cedar log, cut it to length with a two-person hand saw, split it and set it aside while I put the finishing touches on my design sketches. Approximately five months later, I was carving the finishing touches on the mask and preparing to paint it. One night I hung it up on the wall in our family room and sat back to admire it. What happened next surprised me. The thought, there's more to this mask than the story of the Raven and the Whale was clearly impressed upon my mind, followed by the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the book of Daniel. I looked in amazement as the symbols on the mask took on a different meaning than what I had intended and the prophetic symbols of the biblical story took their place.

The ten teeth on top and bottom correspond to the ten toes of the king's statue, which represent ten kings and their kingdoms of the future. Sketched in pencil at the time were three small circles under each eye representing tears of the whale (not shown in the above photo). These were to be painted all one color, although I hadn't decided on the color until that night. I chose to make these circles of progressively smaller size and painted them gold, silver and bronze, respectively, to correspond to three of the four metal colors found in the king's statue (these represent three historic empires). The bottommost portion of the statue was an iron and clay mixture and is a yet future empire. The black/dark gray stone on the forehead of the mask represents this empire. It is made from a shale-like stone called argillite and its' position on the forehead of the mask is also significant. The Bible says the mark of the beast will be on the hand or the forehead of all the unsaved. Jesus said the last days would be like Noah's and would come unexpectedly upon unbelievers. The story of Noah's Ark is also depicted on the mask. Holding the stone in its' beak is a raven (difficult to see anything but the beak in the photo). In typical Haida art style, the raven's image is split in order to wrap it around the curved surface of the mask, so it appears like two ravens. On the shoulder of one wing is an Indian, representing the people onboard the ark. A bear cub on the other raven wing represents the animals. Noah released both a raven and a dove from the ark. The raven (representing evil) is depicted on the mask, but the dove (good) is mysteriously missing. This is a warning to unbelievers of a coming time on the earth when God's people are removed in the rapture and evil prevails during the tribulation. The parallel lines on each side of the eyes represent the deluge and the mask itself - the container of all these symbols, represents the ark. It's also interesting to note that yellow cedar was traditionally used in shipbuilding in the Pacific Northwest. The brown grass-like "hair" of the mask is made from thin strips of cedar bark. This, too, is a warning of coming events on the earth. The Bible speaks of a time when all the green grass will be burned up when the nations are at war. My zeal for the Lord was revived because of this and so I keep my mask hanging on the family room wall as a reminder. I realized that while I was turning an old dirty log into a beautiful work of art, the Holy Spirit was doing something similar with me. This mask is part of my journey in life, but it is just a piece of wood - nothing more. However, it serves as a reminder and a warning - a reminder of the story of Noah's Ark and a warning to unbelievers of what is to come.

Some people think this legendary story from antiquity isn't relevant to our modern age. I don't. In fact, I believe the reference Jesus made to old Noah in the discussion of end time events indicates the importance of this story to our time. A glance at today's news makes even unbelievers wonder what is happening to our world. Increasing crime, natural disasters, wars... these are just a few of the more obvious signs that something is amiss. For those who have studied prophecy, the ever-changing events in the Middle East, the public's increased fascination with UFOs, the move towards unified governments and currencies, and the surge of New Age-related beliefs raises awareness of the significance of the days we're living in. In fact, this story of old may hold some keys to understanding events today. For instance, there's good reason to believe that the "Nephilim" of Genesis 6 could be related to the UFO phenomenon (see As The Days Of Noah Were). There is also a great deal of symbolism and foreshadowing contained within the story of Noah's ark. As a whole, the ark represents heaven and refuge for believers before the coming storm of God's wrath during the tribulation. The ark itself consisted of three levels, upper, middle and lower decks. These correspond to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Note the unmistakable similarity between the door in the ark and Jesus as the doorway into heaven:

"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."" - John 14:6

It wasn't long after completing my mask that I stumbled across B.J. Corbin's web site and my interest in Noah's Ark was revived again. I began to wonder how I could be involved in the search. Perhaps it was my love of the mountains that caused me to take note of the clues given in the story. I began to wonder why the story of Noah would contain so much detail in regards to the number of days that the ark was afloat, when the ark came to rest, and perhaps most curious, the time frame given from the time the ark rested to the day Noah spotted mountains (plural). Another interesting fact given in the story is that the "...waters decreased continually until the tenth month." (when the mountain tops were seen). It struck me quite odd that these details were included and thus began my research into a small piece of the overall puzzle - the search for Noah's ark.