Ron Perry's life of adventure began after he graduated from Tucson High School and the University of Arizona.

Perry and a friend went to Hawaii to become surfers. But it didn't take long for the Army draft to catch up and he was deployed to Korea.

After the Army, Perry returned to Hawaii where friends persuaded him to follow them in Australia, where he caused a bit sensation with his slick Malibu surfboard.

He got married to Barbara and the Perrys spent several years working on her father’s sheep station in Australia before moving to Sydney.

On his first artifact collecting trip to the Sepik River in the mid sixties, Perry learned to deal with tough conditions and clouds of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

After being denied assignments to areas where the local people carved good artifacts, Perry quit his job as a surveyor for the government Lands Department.

At one point Perry hiked with an Australian patrol officer for 10 days through New Guinea's rugged Southern Highlands south of Mendi.

The group's 25 carriers were prohibited from commercial activity so Perry, carrying $250, could buy only as much as he could carry. A shield that cost him $5 then would sell for thousands of dollars in today's market.

Fred Buck, owner of the Polynesian Bar in Honolulu, was Perry's first fine art dealer. For about 10 years, Perry's artifacts could be found in the Art Primitiff gallery on San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

Perry believes New Guinea's finest artifacts are carved in the Sepik area. To get there required an immense amount of preparation.

He would send money to a bank in Wewak, building up the account to $40,000. Then he would catch a ride on one of the weekly mission flights or book a charter to Angoram.

Perry would stock up on tins of sardines and other supplies, rent a motorised canoe with a native driver and crew and set out for six weeks or so exploring river villages. He would leave his purchases in each village's government house.

"I would tell the headman that I don't want anyone to steal this stuff," Perry recalls.

"There were times when I had to hire a second canoe and lash them together with cane then build a rough platform on top to stack my artifacts.

“In Angoram, I rented a storage shed from Jim ‘Deadly Dudly' McKinnon while I built shipping cases using timber from his sawmill. Then I would wait for a coastal freighter to pick them up. Jim charged me a $1 a night to rent a small room."

When McKinnon was elected to the House of Assembly, Perry took over running his mill and other businesses, which included purchasing crocodile skins, operating gas stations and running a general store.

Life has not always been easy for Perry. In the early years, he fought bouts of malaria. "Now, if I start the meds immediately, I am over it in three days, quicker than recovering from a cold," he says.

Perry remained in PNG after the territory won independence from Australia in 1975. He managed the government-run artifact center Village Arts and led boat trips on the Sepik River.

In 1978, as manager of Village Arts, Perry accompanied a collection of PNG art to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Anthropologist Margaret Mead served as guest of honor to open the exhibition.

Perry's reputation and knowledge about PNG artifacts is world renowned. And it continues. "We don't advertise our artifacts," Perry says. "Collectors know about them."