Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1910 — BAGGING A POLAR BEAR. [ARTICLE]

BAGGING A POLAR BEAR.

To be frozen in for a winter at Cape Bathurst, on the Arctic Ocean, is an experience described in a recent number of Recreation. The ship was on a whaling cruise and was well loaded. They had about sixty dogs, and had secured several carcasses of walrus, and cached them on the ice as food for the dogs. One morning, says the captain, who tells the story, my Indian boy, Neponack, came running up the plank, shouting at the top of his voice that there was a bear near the ship. I am not much of a hunter, but I object to being run over by game; so I always keep a rifle and belt of

cartridges within reach. I grabbed them and started to look for the bear. As I drew near the meat cache I saw a big polar bear, with his head down in the barrel, helping himself vigorously. The whole pack of sixty dogs were leaping, barking and howling about him. Tlie bear paid no attention to them, and they all seemed afraid to take hold of him. I walked up to within a hundred yards and took a shot at old Ursus arcticus.

When the ball hit him he leaped into the air, and as he came down on the ice the entire pack of dogs “lit ■into him.”

The bear let out In all directions with his great paws, and at every blow some poor dog was sent shrieking and spinning across the ice. As soon as the bear had thinned out the pack sufficiently to escape, he struck out across the ice-floe for a bit of open water half a mile away. At that stage of the game there were but three dogs In the whole pack that wanted bear. The others had had more than they cared for. But In a few seconds the race was reversed, and the dogs were coming for the ship as if they had been shot out of a gun, and the bear was after them. This was my chance, and I fired again, and my shot finished him. By this time the whole crew had come out to see the fun. We put a line round the bear’s neck and dragged him on board, where we skinned him.

While the fight was going on, I would have sworn the bear would weigh a ton, but when we got him on deck he seemed to have grown much smaller. Still, he was a goodsized animal.