Illustrated by

Joel Hopler

The Inspiration

Mining in Kyrgyzstan: Gold in the hills

Illustrator’s Notes

The most intriguing part of this article to me was the interactions of Kyrgyzstan with a Canadian gold mining company, Centerra Gold. I thought an image of an aging Argali skull, a very large Kyrgyzstan sheep, and a Canadian goose flying away with gold in its mouth would capture that relationship.