Palmer taxidermist excels with custom mounts

March 13, 2005

CASEY RESSLER/Frontiersman Valley Life Editor

Using epoxies and clays, paints and fibers, Dan Williams has established himself as one of the top artists in Alaska.

Williams' Buffalo Mine Road home's garage is his studio, where he crafts the unique pieces of art that hang on his clients' walls. Williams isn't your typical artist, however - he's a taxidermist. And he's a darn good one, too - in late February, he won a trip for two to South Africa after winning the people's choice award and the judge's choice award for one of his mounts at the Safari Club International Alaska chapter's annual fund-raising dinner in Anchorage.

More than 800 people voted in the people's choice division, and an internationally known judge from the Lower 48 was the professional judge.

"They said it was the first time a mount took both the people's choice and the judge's choice," Williams said. "So that was pretty neat."

The mount that he entered is of a leopard he shot in Africa several years ago. The cat is hovering over a downed baboon. Williams' attention to detail comes through in the mount, as each individual whisker on the leopard is in precisely the right place, and the cat's wrinkles around the neck are perfect for the pose.

He said he worked on the mount for two weeks, nonstop. He shot the leopard five years ago, before moving to Alaska, and knew he wanted to do a custom mount, but didn't want to have to transport it to Alaska.

"I took 30 measurements on the cat in the field, to make sure I had everything covered," Williams explained. "I had the skin tanned in North Carolina and then put it in the freezer, because it was easier to bring up here like that. When I took it out of the freezer, it was in as good condition as if it was just dropped off here."

Williams, who owns Artistic Wildlife Taxidermy, got his start in Michigan in the late 1980s.

"I shot a deer and took it to a guy's shop and started looking around, and I thought, 'This is what I want to do,'" Williams said. "So that's what I did."

He had a shop in Michigan, but moved to Alaska about two years ago, brought north by the lure of the hunting and fishing opportunities of the Last Frontier. Now, working out of his garage, he has clear goals for his business.

"The big shops are so far behind here, some have like 15-month turnarounds," Williams said. "I'm staying small on purpose. I'm doing more custom work, and bigger pieces."

That means he's staying away from the standard taxidermy subjects of birds, horn mounts and even fish.

"I really enjoy doing sheep mounts, big game and all the big cats," Williams said. "There are a lot of good taxidermists - excellent ones, really - out there who do birds, fish and the smaller stuff, but a guy can get so far behind doing all of those, because up here, work just keeps coming in. People are hunting something up here 12 months a year."

Williams' home is a perfect example of the custom work he performs - there's the leopard and baboon in his living room, with an enormous giraffe mount lurking just around the kitchen's entry.

He's even building a ledge above his fireplace, where sheep will be perched.

"By being a small operation, I can do more personalized things. I'm the only person touching the mounts," Williams said.

Winning ribbons in competitions is nothing knew to Williams - above his work bench is a slew of brightly colored ribbons celebrating his accomplishments. He also won last year's Safari Club International Alaska chapter's top prize, for a whitetail deer, and he has won an international competition with the same whitetail mount.