Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1911 — BIG GAME of the ARCTIC ICE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BIG GAME of the ARCTIC ICE

By E.P. LARNED

I

T WAS due to the initiative of and to the preparations made by Mr. G. F. Norton'of New York and to his kindness In including me in the party, that I owe this opportunity to* set forth here a brief account of the hunting trip taken by Fred Norton, Harry Whitney and myself during the summer of 1908 on the sailing steamer Erik, which sailed as tender to the Roosevelt as far as Etah, North Greenland, on the

memorable expedition of that year, which resulted in the discovery of the pole by Commander Robert E. Peary. Whitney was a memtfer of the party until we left Etah to return home. The ship being our headquarters for the whole of the trip, we were able to take alpng as large an outfit as we wished. In addition to the usual paraphernalia we took with us an 18-foot whaleboat propelled by a ,threehordtepower gasoline engine. Sydney, Cape/Breton island, was the rendezvous for the two ships of this expedition, the Roosevelt and the Erik, to which place Norton and I proceeded by train from New York. The Erik had come from St. John’s several days before and was taking on coal and provisions. The Roosevelt arrived on the fourteenth, with Whitney and other members of the expedition, with the exception of Commander Peary, who came by train on the same day. Ajt Sydney we met Mr. Craft, from Carnegie Institute, Washington, who was to become a welcome member of our party aboard the Erik. Of the ship’s company was Capt. Sam Bartlett, uncle of Captain Bob, of the Roosevelt; first mate, Tom Bartlett, at one time skipper for t)r. Grenfell; second mate, Harold Bartlett, son of the “old man,” as the crew called Captain Samf chief engineer, Richard Pike; second engineer, Jim; another Jim, the steward; Joe White, the cabin boy, and-the cook, boatswain, two stokers and a crew of five sailors—-all Newfoundlanders with the exception of. the cabin boy, who was, I believe, an elevator boy in a New York hotel before we took him along qs chief administrator to our comfort. This was the gathering aboard the Erik when she sailed out of Sydney on Friday, July 17, at 12:30 a. m., leaving the Roosevelt to follow later and making the start of a polar expedition which was to become in a little over a year’s time, the most famous in history. We passed through the Straits of Belle Isle during the night of the eighteenth, having experienced both clear and foggy weather and a drop in the temperature to 40 degrees

Fahrenheit, making Hawk Harbor, a whaling station and factory on the Labrador coast, Sunday evening at eight The whale meat for which we came to Hawk Harbor having been stowed' on deck forward we left ip company with the Roosevelt on Tuesday afternoon and the following day entered the harbor at Turnivik, our last stop on the Labrador coast, in the midst of a thunderstorm. Turnivik is a fishing Btation, and here Capt Bob Bartlett said good-by to his father, Capt. William* Bartlett, who is owner of the station. The run through Davis strait, across Baffin and Melville bays, around Cape York and into North Star bay, where we waited for the Roosevelt, consumed nine days, during which * time we overhauled our outfit, worked on a sail for the whaleboat and fished for gulls that wouldn’t 'bite. We crossed the arctic circle on the twenty-eighth of July. At midnight on the thirtieth of July 1 took a snapshot photograph of the ship from the end of the bowV; ' ' , ' , '' '' The Roosevelt came in on the third of August, having stopped at Cape York to pick up dogs and natives, and at the suggestion of Peary we lost no time in preparing for a walrus hunt. Commander Peary helped us in •very way possible—as indeed he had done from the start and continued to do until the ships separated—procuring Eskimo guides for Of and telling us where to go and wbat to do when we got there. We left the ship at three ,In the morning with three Eskimo guides, steering our power whaleboat west through 1 Wolstenholm sound to where Saunders island lifts its steep, bare sides, washed on the west by the open water of Baffin bay. In the sound and about Saunders island congregate the old bull walrus, while further north in the Whale sound regions are found only the cows and young bulls. Off the eastern end of the island one of the Eskimo pointed to a black spot on a floating cake of ice, and as we pushed nearer the black turned to a dirty brownish yellow, soon easily recognized as two big walrus bulls lying asleep on the ice pan. The engine was stopped and the boat drifted up quietly. Two Eskimo stood in the bow with harpoons ready, I stood next, and the others somewhere behind me. When within about 30 feet both walrus raised their heads, showing long white tusks and < thick necks criss-crossed with scan. As WhitJk . ~

ney and I fired they started sliding off the pans into the water. The Eskimo in the bow, first to throw his harpoon, missed the nearest animal as he sank, but the second man threw true,

and the line slipped out over the bow, tightening with a jerk as he snubbed it on a cleat. So we had one walrus, at any rate, hard and fast on the business end of the line. When he came up to breathe —for he was far from dead —1 fired at him again and missed, and he ducked under. The same thing happened several times, and though I did finally finish him with a bullet through his brain, I had no idea until then what a lot of practice it takes to shoot accurately out of a boat when rocked even by small waves, as was ours. The sixth of August waß calm and warm, the sun shone brightly and the innumerable pans of floating ice glistened under the slanting rays, as the Erik shoved her nose into the mouth of Whale sound. “Just the day for walrus—no wind and they’ll be out on the ice sleeping in the sun,’’ said Mat/Henson, who had come aboard from the Roosevelt to take charge of the hunt;, and Mat knew, for he had hunted walrus in Whale sound many a time. In half an hour several pans of walrus had been sighted—it was then four in the morning—and two boats were launched; Norton, Henson, two Eskimo and myself in a rowboat; Whitney, with a crew, in the launch. We were soon busy. When an animal was killed an oar was hoisted and the ship steamed up to the spot and hauled the dead monster aboard with the winch; the boat shoving off again to search for more game. Some of the “tricks of the trade” were soon learned, for instance: a walrus killed in the water would sink nine times out! of ten, and unless there waß a harpoon in him would be lost. The . same was generally true of one shot on an ice pan, unless killed Instantly—he would slide off into the water and sink. Our party finally returned aboard exhausted, to find that about 40 walrus bad been taken. When I awoke next morning we were dropping anchor off a little Eskimo village named Kangerderlooksoah, situated near the mouth of Inglefield gulf. Commander Peary had been with us aboard the Erik since leaving North Star bay and said that he would remain here long enough to give us a chance at the caribou. That afternooh we pushed off in the whaleboat, bound for the head of the gulf, our five Eskimo companions as pleased and as * excited as children at the idea of a hunt We worked along shore, zigzagging between low

slabs of ice, where sea pigeons floated and little auks dove and flew away as the boat approached. Looking over the side one could see their little black-and-white bodies shooting the water, using their wings vigorously and leaving a trail of bubbles behind. Several seals were seen and we rounded a point half an hour later, another village appeared, the pointed huts hardly distinguishable at first from the pointed rocks. A native came out In a kayak to accompany us ashore. At least half the population expressed a strong desire to go with us, by getting into the boat when we were making ready to leave, a compromise being finally effected by our taking along two fine-looking young bucks each dressed in a new bear and sealskin suit. At seven the next morning the sun burst through the mist and shone on the wet. rocks, the white ice in the bay, and also on the glistening black head of a curious seal wallowing about just off shore. Things were moving in no time. The huskies crawled out from under the boat cover and beat their fur clothing with sticks to get out the dampness and the 6il stoves were set going in preparation for breakfast. At eight we started inland, accompanied by the Eskimo hunters, carrying rifles and a few biscuits. » The first ridge rose sharply from the shore, the trail beyond leading up a broad, reeky valley. Here we separated, my two guides turning up a dry creek bed. It was hard traveling over the broken rock in the valleys and the steep slants of the ridges, and my .405 Winchester got pretty heavy before we sighted the first game, in the shape of two blue-gray caribou bulls, feeding at the edge of a rock-rimmed pond. One of the huskies and I circled around the down-wind side and crawled on our bellies up to a big boulder near the head of the pond, bringing both animals within range. As we reached the boulder and peeked cautiously around it the nearer caribou began to get uneasy and started out of the water, but pulled up on the bank, at a range of about 100 yards, long enough to get himself properly shot. At that distance his coat was much the same shade of gray as the rocks on which be fell. Not long after leaving this pftnd we killed, between us, 15 ptarmigan with the .22 rifle. A few hours later, standing on the top of v( high ridge looking across | a big valley with a lake at the bottom, the inland Ice c&p could be plainly seen curving down, smooth and white, smothering all but this narrow fctrip of barren land along the coast; and at the foot of the ridge on the other side, standing ankle deep at the edge of another little pond, were two more caribou, a bull and a cow. We dropped back of the crest of the ridge and, following down a ravine further 6n, came out on a level with the pond, hidden from the sight of the game by a small hummock of rock. By crawling to the top of the hummock we were able to get a view of the pond. The caribou were still there, but lying down among the stones, and so like them in color that they-were very hard to locate without the glasses—though only 300 yards distant as

I afterward placed it. It was useless to try to get nearer, as there whs no cover, and I fired at the bull and could Iqe he was hit by the way he staggered, as he jumped up and tried to run. The cow jumped up also and stood still, broadside on, and when I fired at her I could hear the bullet strike very plainly. Though it did not knock her down, she seemed unable to run, and another shot put her out of her misery. While still at this pond the two Eskimo'hunters with whom Whitney started out chased a qow s and calf on the run right past us. I hit the cow in the Side at the third shot and the calf stopped and was killed by one of the Eskimo. We now had six caribou —a fair, supply of meat —and two extra men to help carry it in, as the other party had had no luck. So I left them to bring in what they could and started for camp klone. On the way I killed the biggest bull of ail. He was alone on a hillside and I got within range without much difficulty. Whitney was in camp and said he had seen no caribou and Norton came in a couple of hours later, tired and disgusted, having shot a calf. Our / second attempt at walrus hunting in Whale sound was practically a failure, the weather being unfavorable. The Erik was headed for Etah, where we found the Roosevelt. At Etah the shore rises abruptly on both sides of the harbor and the sharp, rocky hills were dotted with Arctic hares. They are white with black-tipped ears all the year around and have extremely long and powerful hind legs, often running along almost upright for considerable distances. They were very shy when we arrived, having been hunted for some days by men from the Roosevelt. During the ten days spent at Etah the Roosevelt was making ready for her dash northward. The two ships lashed together, transferred supplies, coal and the vile-smelling whale meat, Which we had carried for so long aboard the Erik. Coal and provisions were landed and the day before the Roosevelt sailed was spent in transferring some 250 dogs from an island, where they had been put ashore, to the Roosevelt’s deck. Early in the afternoon of the eighteenth of August the Roosevelt showed by signal that she was ready to start north. At th’e time the Erik was tied to the rocks, landing coal, and the Roosevelt was anchored further up the bay. The captain, Norton, Whitney and I rowed over to her and Commander Peary Invited us into his cabin, where we drank a glass of brandy to the health of all on board and to the success of the expedition, shook hands with everyone we could find amid the bustle and preparation of starting, and rowed back to the Erik. Whitney had decided to winter at Etah, and we left blm there on the twenty-first, dropping him astern in his rowboat about an hour's run out Here we were homeward bound and not a sight had we had of the greatest and most de sired arctic game, the white bear. It was nearly a month later before we did see one. We killed a few more walrus, arctic hares and birds on our way south, visited the Greenland Danish settlements at Uperaavik, Disco and Holstenberg and crossed Davis strait, striking the coast on the west side near the mouth of Cumberland gulf. On the twenty-second of September, off the Labrador coast, we ran into an iceberg, the shock breaking open the old Erik pretty well back to the pavement. Fortunately the damage was about two feet above the water line; very fortunately, as none of the boats happened to be In a condition that would permit quick launching. The crash came about eight o’clock on a bright, starlight evening, with the northern lights shifting across the sky and probably blotting out the berg until it was too late to escape collision. This accident seemed to take the life right out of the old ship, though she bad withstood so many dangers in the past, and it was a crippled old Erik with a badly smashed noss that finally dropped anchor hi Brlgus harbor.