One of the basic principles of all my polar expeditions has been to depend upon the country itself for the fresh-meat supply. To this fact is due the entire absence of scurvy on all my voyages. Contrary to a general idea, the polar regions of northern Greenland, Ellesmere Land, and Grant Land have for the experienced hunter a considerable and most attractive fauna, and while there are certain parts where it is virtually impossible to find even so much as a stray polar hare, there are other regions where a very fair amount of meat can be obtained in a comparatively short time by those knowing how, and acquainted with polar topography and the habits of polar animals.

The polar bill of fare includes fish, flesh, and fowl in considerable variety. The walrus and seal of the Eskimo are, of course, known to every child. Both furnish a strong and healthy diet, but few white men become really fond of it. There are, however, other animals in the region which furnish delicacies that would grace the table of the finest hotel in any great city, as the musk-ox, reindeer, and polar hare. Polar bear, if young, makes a very acceptable steak. At any age the meat is not at all disagreeable when frozen and eaten raw.

Of the sea animals, in addition to the walrus and the ringed or floe-seal, there are the harp- and the square-flipper-seal, the flesh of both of which possesses a much less pronounced bouquet than the walrus and the floe-seal.

Of birds there are various kinds; the most abundant are the little auks, and next the Brunnich’s guillemot. Then there are the eider-duck, the long-tailed duck, the brant, and the king-eider. It is possible also in some localities to get an occasional mess of ptarmigan, the arctic white grouse. The various species of gulls are considered fine eating by the Eskimos, but they are a bit rank to the white man.

Of fish there are two kinds, the grayling and a species of char that we called rather affectionately salmon-trout. In September, 1900, this latter fish kept alive for about ten days my party of six men and twenty-three clogs. It is undoubtedly the finest fish food to be found anywhere, in color a pale pink, like salmon or unripe watermelon. Living in water never warmer than forty degrees, perhaps never above thirty-five degrees, it is the sweetest, firmest fish fiber in the world.

It is no small task to secure a supply of meat sufficient to keep hundreds of dogs alive and in good condition all winter, and to provide fresh meat for a crew of over twenty and some fifty Eskimos. Hunting parties must be kept constantly in the field during the autumn months to meet the demand.

The mainstay in the way of food for the dogs is walrus, and weighing anywhere from 1000 to 3000 pounds, they provide the maximum of meat at a minimum of time and energy. During the months of July, August, and September these animals are to be found in large herds in Wolstenholme and Whale Sounds, where they assemble to feed on the shell-fish abounding in those shallow waters. Here they may be seen basking in the sun on the ice-floes and cakes of ice, singly, or in groups ranging from two or three up into the hundreds. I have seen anywhere from one hundred to one hundred and fifty walrus on one large ice-pan, with an equally large number in the surrounding water; but only on Littleton Island, in Smith Sound, and along the shore of the mainland opposite have I ever seen them on the rocks. It is worthy of note that during the summer months males only, and chiefly the old ones, are to be found in Wolstenholme Sound, the females, calves, and young males haunting the waters about Littleton Island and Oomenak Sound.

A few walrus are secured by the Eskimos in these waters during the summer, but the bulk of the annual catch, at least two-thirds and possibly three quarters, is made at Cape Chalon in the spring. Virtually all the walrus of this region winter in the open north water off Cape Chalon, sometimes separated from the cape by ten miles of ice, sometimes by twenty-five. Strong winds break up the ice along the edge of the north water early in February, making the distance for an Eskimo to drag his sledge from Cape Chalon just so much less. This breaking up of the border ice is usually followed by low temperatures, which in a few hours make the new ice strong enough to support a sledge and dogs. The hunters leave the cape early in the morning and, driving out to the edge of the old ice, tie their dogs, and with a lance, harpoon, and line begin a search out on the new ice for the walrus. On sighting an animal, a hunter harpoons it, takes a turn of the line round the harpoon-shaft, sticks the harpoon into the ice, and braces it with his foot, while a companion lances the lungs or heart of the huge creature. As soon as the walrus is dead it is pulled out upon the ice, cut up, and placed on the sledges, which have meanwhile been brought out, and is ready to be carried back to the settlement. These hunts are continued until late in the spring, and large quantities of meat are secured.

Hunting walrus in a small whale-boat, however, furnishes the most exciting and dangerous sport north of the arctic circle. With an Eskimo crew at the oars; a sailor at the steering-oar; two other Eskimos, experts with the harpoon, in the bow; an experienced man in the bow with a rifle; and Bartlett or me in the stern, just in front of the man at the steering-oar, we considered a boat well manned. In the way of equipment there should be at least three repeating-rifles, with abundance of ammunition; six or eight harpoons, with lines and floats, spare boat-hooks, and a heavy, short-handled ax for each man, for smashing the walrus in the face when they try to come aboard. A good supply of old coats or blankets should be taken along for plugging up holes punched in the boat by the tusks of the walrus.

At the faintest suggestion of smoke walrus will quickly disappear in the water, and a party nearing a herd of these huge creatures by steamer should keep to leeward of them if possible, and take to the small boats when still far enough away to prevent its presence being detected by the animals. The whale-boats should always be white, to give an appearance of cakes of ice, and the oar-locks carefully muffled to reduce the noise of approach to a minimum. It is a comparatively easy thing to harpoon a walrus asleep on an ice-pan, and sometimes by using small bergs as a screen to hide behind, a party can approach to within a few yards of a herd and harpoon several before they are fully awake. In most cases, however, twenty yards is the nearest a boat can get before the walrus are aroused, and begin to slip into the water. A few shots quickly decide whether they are going to fight or beat a retreat, necessitating a long chase possibly, and adding to the difficulty of harpooning them.

The harpoon equipment of the Eskimo is made up of a tough line of the hide of the square-flipper-seal, one hundred feet long, attached to an iron-edged ivory head fitting on the end of a heavy harpoon-shaft of wood. The other end of the line is attached to an entire sealskin inflated, and some distance from the end is fastened a rectangular drag, attached, like a kite, by a bridle-line. The float, remaining on the surface, marks the position of the animal and prevents its going deeper than the length of the line. Only the largest and most powerful bull walrus can drag it under, and that only for a few minutes. The float also keeps the animal from going to the bottom and being lost after being killed. The drag retards the movements of the animal and tires him out.

The Eskimo in charge of the harpoon has his line coiled beside him in the bow, with the harpoon-shaft laid across the gunwales. A few coils of the line are separated from the rest and placed a little to one side, where they can be easily and quickly grasped and held in his left hand as the harpoon is launched, thus allowing the line to play out easily. As soon as a walrus is harpooned, line, float, and drag are thrown overboard. Care should be taken to give the flying line a clear berth, for to be caught by a turn of it would mean at least a wetting and possibly more serious results.

In an attack by fifty or more of these infuriated beasts a small whale-boat is no place for a nervous person, and I have known Eskimos, accustomed for years to such encounters, when surrounded by these huge, ivory-tusked creatures, with angry, bloodshot eyes, emitting vicious roars through thick, stiff-bearded lips, and making savage attempts to get at the occupants of the boat, to lose their heads so completely as to drop their harpoons, begin to yell, and even to spit at their formidable foes. At such a time every one seizes an oar, boat-hook, or anything solid, and, as the brutes attack, hits them over the head to keep them at a respectable distance from the boat while the men at the rifles do their work. In several encounters I have had a harpooned walrus draw the line taut and, before he could be finished with a bullet, race off, with us in tow, crashing into any ice which might be in our course, knocking the startled Eskimos from the thwarts, with the rest of the herd following, snorting and charging on all sides. A walrus can with the utmost ease plunge his tusks through several inches of new ice, and it is no uncommon occurrence for one to dive and come up under the boat, ripping a hole in it, and necessitating a hasty retreat to firm ice.

The modus operandi of my big, systematic walrus hunts to secure the maximum amount of meat in the least time was as follows:

As many harpoon outfits as possible, fifty sometimes, complete with floats and drags, were assembled on my ship, with the best harpooners of the tribe. Then two, three, or four of my whale-boats were kept at work, each supplied with six or eight outfits. The galley was kept in commission continuously supplying hot coffee, baked beans, and pilot-bread, and one of the officers remained in the crow’s-nest (a barrel at the mast-head) with a telescope, locating the cakes of ice that had walrus on them. Sometimes when the walrus were numerous all the boats would get away at the same time in different directions. Sometimes one would start out, and then the ship would steam on and drop another and then another. Each boat kept at the walrus until it had all its harpoons and lines fast to the animals, and perhaps two or three dead with rifle-bullets on the ice. When all the lines and floats were out, the boat would pull round to each float where an animal was still alive, despatch it with a rifle, then, if the ship was near, go aboard for lunch, or, if far off, stand an oar on end whaler-fashion and wait its arrival. The ship, with the gangways in the bulwarks amidships taken out and a narrow staging rigged down the side about a foot above the water, would then steam alongside each float in turn, a man on the stage would pass the float up to the deck, and the walrus hanging dead in the water down the length of the line, would be pulled to the surface, the man on the stage with a sharp, strong knife would cut a slit in the tough hide, insert the hook of a heavy tackle and fall, the man at the steam-winch would turn on steam, and in a minute or two the huge brute would be dropped in a brown mass on deck. A young Eskimo would jump forward, cut out the harpoon, and take line, float, and drag aft, coil them carefully for use again, and the old men and women would quickly skin and cut up the animal. By the time all of one boat’s kill had been brought aboard her crew had had their lunch, and, if other walrus were in sight, went away again after them, or, if none was in sight, waited till the masthead man sighted more.

In this way forty walrus have been obtained in a night or a day’s hunt, and two hundred and fifty in two weeks’ work. On one or two memorable hunts they came in so fast that it was impossible to skin and cut them up till the hunt was over and every one had had a good sleep. At these times the deck was hidden under the huge, brown, shapeless forms, and the ship listed heavily to one side with the top-heavy load.

In hunting walrus only powerful rifles should be used, and even with them knowledge of how and where to shoot will save an enormous expenditure of powder and lead. It is utterly useless to shoot walrus in the body. For a side shot, a spot on the head as far back of the eye as the eye is back of the nose should be hit. Here the small brain has less protecting skull about it. The back of the head is also vulnerable. A frontal shot is almost an impossibility. The only chance is, when the walrus opens its mouth, to put a bullet between the tusks down the throat and smash the vertebræ at the base of the skull. This shot is most likely to occur with a number of bull walrus in the water close about the boat. On several occasions a bull walrus, rising with a rush close to the boat and opening his mouth to bellow, has been surprised by a shot of this character, and gone like a rock to the bottom. On one occasion a harpooned animal, while fast to a line and float, invariably rose to the surface facing the boat, and had the entire front of its head back to the eyes literally smashed off, tusks and all, by eight or ten shots before he was killed. It is an utter waste of powder and walrus meat to shoot these animals in the water unless they have been harpooned and are fast to a line and float. If instantly killed, they go to the bottom like rocks. If mortally wounded, they struggle to the same place. On a few occasions, in shooting a walrus in the back of the head, the blow of the bullet that killed it instantly forced its head under water, giving the air in the Lungs no chance to escape, and the animal floated with a bit of the back exposed till a float could be fastened to it. But these cases are rare, and in my later expeditions my invariable orders were never to shoot a walrus in the water unless it already had a line fast to it. Even when shot on the ice, unless it is a large floe, one is never sure of an animal until it is aboard or has a float fast to it.

The inert collapse of half a ton or more of flesh and bone under the impact of a bullet in the brain is sufficient to tilt a small ice-pan and slide the dead walrus into the water. The slightest touch of the ship as she forges alongside the cake to hoist the animal on board will have the same result, and on two or three occasions when I have lowered a boat to put a man on the ice and make a line fast to the animal, the man’s weight has been enough to disturb the balance and throw the precious meat into the water.

Now that the United States has given up all her rights in Greenland to Denmark, it is quite likely that an embargo on walrus hunting in the Whale Sound region will be attempted as has been the case for years in southern Greenland.

In such event polar expeditions by the Smith Sound route may find it desirable to obtain dog food in bulk for winter use at headquarters from the whale factories of the Labrador coast. It will not be as satisfactory as the walrus meat, but it may serve the purpose.

Seen a few feet under one’s boat in the pale-green, icy water of Whale Sound, a herd of rushing walrus, as swift and sinuous as seals, the great uncouth, gray shapes rolling from side to side to leer upward with little, bloodshot eyes and show a flash of white tusks, is like a nightmare dream of the inferno.

Stuffed and baked, the heart of the walrus is as great a delicacy as a beef heart. Dr. Senn, a Chicago traveler and writer, a summer visitor on one of my auxiliary ships, was greatly captivated by it, and Percy, my Newfoundland steward of numerous expeditions, incited by the praise of his discovery, became a blue-ribbon chef in cooking it. Some explorers have highly praised the walrus liver and urged its value as a preventive and cure for scurvy. Never having been obliged to use it for that purpose, and spoiled perhaps by the more delicate seal, reindeer, musk-ox, and hare livers, the members of my expeditions never seemed to care for it.

The thick, tough hide of the walrus furnishes a dog food of wonderful staying qualities. A small piece of it when frozen will keep the strongest-jawed Eskimo dog occupied and interested for hours in his efforts to soften it to the point where he can swallow it whole.

I have always taken on just as much walrus meat and blubber as the ship, already filled almost to her capacity with coal, etc., would allow—some fifty walrus, perhaps. This, together with seventy or more tons of whale meat bought at Labrador, has carried the dogs through the winter, and has also helped feed the Eskimos, who virtually live on narwhal, seal, and walrus. The narwhal and seal also make valuable dog food, the former being found in the Whale Sound region; but on my last expedition north there was virtually no narwhal hunting.

Seals are obtained in abundance at Cape Chalon, the spring hunting-ground of the Eskimos, and at the end of some seasons large piles of this meat are stacked along the ice-foot at the village. Equipped with a seal spear, and dressed in the warmest of furs, with feet padded with bearskin to muffle their tread, and with small three-legged stools, men, boys, and even women may be seen sitting for hours beside a hole in the ice waiting for a seal to appear for a breath of air. Occasional seals were always captured on our way to and from winter quarters, and they frequently appeared near the ship during the winter.

For the fresh-meat supply of my men I have always depended on the musk-ox, and on all my expeditions have been able to find numbers of these animals within a radius of a hundred miles of the ship or other winter quarters. They can be found at any time of the year, even during the long polar night, by those who know how. The grass and creeping-willows furnish subsistence for them the year round, the strong winds peculiar to those regions sweeping large tracts of land bare of snow in winter, thus enabling them to eke out an existence.

I killed my first musk-ox in 1892 on the northeast coast of Greenland near Independence Bay, and three years later discovered tracks of fifteen or twenty in the same region, and secured six of them. During my expedition of 1898–1902 numerous musk-oxen were killed about Fort Conger, seventy-odd in its immediate neighborhood; forty in the region from Discovery Harbor westward by way of Black Rock Vale, and the southern side of Lake Hazen, seventeen about St. Patrick’s Bay, three beyond Black Cape, near the winter quarters of the Alert; sixteen in Musk Ox Valley; twelve at the Bellows and Black Rock Vale; seventeen on Bache Peninsula; twenty at the northern arm of Buchanan Bay, and one at its southern arm; seven on the ice-cap of Ellesmere Land; and in the autumn of 1900 one hundred and one were killed in various localities from Discovery Harbor to Very River, ninety-two of them being secured in less than three weeks. In the region about Cape Morris K. Jesup two herds numbering fifteen and eighteen animals were discovered, and two or three stray ones, but only four of these were needed for my party.

My 1905–06 expedition secured its supply of musk-ox meat chiefly from the drainage basin of Lake Hazen. The northern side of the lake had not been drawn upon for years, and hunting parties in this region, covering the southern slopes of the United States Range, met with great success. Eskimo hunting parties also covered the country from Lake Hazen and Wrangel Bay northward to Clements Markham Inlet with almost as satisfactory results. A few animals were killed on the way north on Bache Peninsula, and if it had not been for the discovery of a few of these animals on my return from 87° 6´ my party would never have reached the ship. Luckily seven musk-oxen were found in Nares Land, and later on my western trip we secured seven more near Cape Columbia.

The presence of musk-oxen can be detected very quickly by the patches of luxuriant grass which mark all their rendezvous, although along the inhabited parts of the Greenland coast an unusual growth of grass may be a sign of a former igloo. A careful examination of these places will soon show whether musk-oxen have been about, bits of wool and hair shed from their shaggy coats being scattered here and there on the ground, while their tracks show how recent has been their visit. Fresh tracks of musk-oxen being discovered, it does not often mean a great distance to travel before the animals themselves are sighted; and musk-oxen once seen may be considered dead musk-oxen by an experienced hunter with a good dog or two. On approaching to within a mile or so of them, the dogs are let loose, and the hunter can follow at a comfortable pace, knowing that on his arrival the herd will be rounded up. A musk-ox, if alone, will retreat to the nearest cliff and back up against it at the appearance of dogs. A herd, however, will round up anywhere, with their tails together, facing the intruders, while their leader takes his stand on the outskirts of the group and charges the dogs as they come up. As soon as the leader is shot, another steps out from the herd to take his place, and so on. When things begin to look too bad for them, they will sometimes make a wild break to escape, or the whole herd may charge the enemy.

With the musk-ox, as with the walrus, knowing how makes all the difference in the world in the amount of ammunition expended and the amount of meat secured. With the exception of a few months in summer a strong rifle is required, as the pelt of the musk-ox is very thick and heavy. With a suitable rifle and some experience one shot to an animal should be sufficient.

In my 1900 sledge trip round the northern terminus of Greenland I obtained ten musk-oxen and a polar bear with twelve cartridges. Two of these were expended on the bear. In a very successful late September afternoon hunt on the north side of Lake Hazen I secured twenty-five musk-oxen with twenty-six cartridges, two being expended on the bull leader, which my first hurried shot had stopped, but not killed, in a charge on my dogs. At another time, the others of my party being away, I took a solitary scout from camp with only an army Colt 45. With the six shots in this I got five bull musk-oxen.

On the other hand, in the narrative of the Polaris expedition, it is stated that some of the crew expended three hundred shots on one animal, and then, while they went after more ammunition, it left.

With the musk-ox, as with the walrus, in my later expeditions I hunted them on a large scale and in a systematic way, with careful attention to details to secure the largest amount of meat and not waste an ounce. All hunting parties had detailed orders.

Musk-oxen were to be shot back of the fore shoulder or in the neck, at the base of the skull. These are the instantly fatal spots. Frontal or head shots are a waste of ammunition. Skins were removed with feet and legs attached, rolled up in bundles to fit the sledges, and taken back to the ship to be thawed out and carefully prepared by the Eskimo women at their leisure during the winter. Hearts, livers, and kidneys were removed, laid out to freeze solid, then stored under rocks away from dogs, wolves, and foxes until sledged back to the ship. The remainder of the viscera was fed to the dogs on the spot. The heavy backbone, pelvis, and leg bones were cut out, the marrow bones cracked, and their contents eaten at the hunting-camp. The others were thrown to the dogs to gnaw clean. The great brick-red hams, fore shoulders, and balls of meat from the neck and ribs, all frozen like granite, were then piled in a big stack, to be sledged to the ship from time to time during the winter. In this way nothing was wasted; the bones and viscera were utilized on the spot, and only the clear solid meat had to be hauled over the arduous trails.

There is constant excitement in traversing musk-ox country. One can never tell when the opening up of a valley or a turn around a cliff may bring one or a herd of the shaggy animals into view.

On two occasions the discovery of musk-oxen saved my sledge-party from starvation, and the discovery was not due to happy chance or accident, but was the result of careful, intelligent search in suitable localities, examining every slope and valley and rock within range of field-glasses, carried for that special purpose, and as much a part of the hunting equipment as the rifle.

When I stretch myself or drop my hand on the thick, black felt of the musk-ox robes in my study, the touch of them conjures up many a vivid picture, and I have a more than friendly feeling for those strange, black denizens of the highest North.

The favorite haunts of the reindeer are the rolling, grassy slopes about the landlocked lakes of the North, where the pasturage is abundant, and they are sheltered from the cold sea-fogs and the sharp winds from the ice-cap. These animals, or traces of them, have been found by various explorers in Rawlings Bay, the region about Fort Conger in Grinnell Land, and at Alexandra Haven in Ellesmere Land, and they have been reported in considerable numbers on the western side of this land. In 1901 one of my men found an antler as far south as Erik Harbor.

In the region about our winter quarters in McCormick and Bowdoin Bays in 1891–93 and 1893–95 deer were most plentiful. During the autumn of 1891 one was killed on the plateau just back of Red Cliff House; two boat-trips to the head of McCormick Bay resulted in fourteen being obtained, and soon after ten were found on the northeast side of the bay in Five Glacier Valley. The following spring eleven were added to our larder, two from Five Glacier Valley, one from Cape Cleveland, the rest from Bowdoin Bay. In 1893 I visited the southern slopes of the northern side of Olriks Bay, a favorite resort of the deer. Five hours’ work added seventeen deer to our meat supply, and thirty-three were killed later in the same place; seven were seen in the neighborhood of Cape Athol, but only one was bagged. In January, 1894, hunting parties sent out to the deer pastures of Kangerdlooksoah were very successful, bringing back fifty-four animals.

In 1905–06 we got eleven deer on the northern coast of Grant Land; a party sent out to Porter Bay returned with the meat and skins of seven; and seven more were obtained from a herd of eleven discovered on Fielden Peninsula. These reindeer were the first of their kind ever found, magnificent animals, almost pure white in color, designated by naturalists as a new species. Later these were found to be numerous in the region between Lake Hazen and Cape Hecla and along the coast of northern Grant Land to the westward, fifty-odd being killed.

On my last expedition a Porter Bay party brought in fourteen of the animals; three were picked up not far from the ship, and a stray one in James Ross Bay.

A deer means a week’s rations added to the meat supply of the party, and the realization of this when bringing one down is far from being an unpleasant sensation.

Of course deer hunting is much the same the world over, but the Eskimos have a magic call to these animals which has been taught to the young hunters of every rising generation. It is similar to the hissing of a cat, only more prolonged, and will cause a fleeing buck reindeer to stop instantly in his tracks, giving the desired shot.

To most polar travelers and explorers, and to all readers, the polar bear, sometimes called the “Tiger of the North,” has loomed largest as the “big game” par excellence of the North. I know of nothing that will excite an Eskimo so much as the sight of one of these huge creatures in the distance; but a contest with even three or four bears and a man armed with a Winchester is always one-sided and tame sport in comparison with a lively walrus hunt.

None of my expeditions has had the exciting bear adventures of others. Bears never have attacked us, or come poking into our tents while we were asleep. No member of my party ever had a hair-breadth encounter with one. We hunted them assiduously, partly for the meat, but more for skins to supply us with trousers for the long sledge journeys, and we were able to secure only enough for this purpose.

My visualization of a bear hunt is the constant watching of the ice-floes about the sledge with eyes and field-glasses, the glimpsing of a cream-colored spot slipping behind an ice pinnacle, or of great tracks in the snow. If the bear has heard the dogs, the tracks are a series of huge leaps headed directly away from us; the loosening of two or three of the trained dogs, the rapid overhauling of the bear, a single shot, or at the most two, and then strenuous efforts to keep the crazy dogs away from the carcass while it is skinned, cut up, and loaded on the sledge.

Though classed among the pure carnivora, the Eskimos say that the polar bear of that region when unable to secure seals will take a “hike” across country, and fill up on grass like a reindeer.

I believe this to be true. An enormous male bear which I killed on the Fourth of July in Flagler Bay was big bellied as a cow, and the stomach was distended with grass.

In 1886, at Ravenscraig Harbor, on the south side of Eglinton Fiord, a fleet of four whalers and the Eagle obtained ten bears, two of these being harpooned in the water by the crew of the Eagle. So enraged was one of the animals that the crews of three boats were required to keep the bear from climbing into the Eagle’s boat to wreak vengeance on the occupants. Just north of Cape Hooper we got three more bears in the ice-pack. It is not always possible to bring a bear down with the first shot when he is traveling over rough ice, but there need be no doubt as to whether a shot has reached its mark or not, for a wounded bear will always make savage snaps at the spot stung by a bullet.

In July, 1891, we obtained one bear in the Melville Bay ice-pack, and pursued an old bear with her two cubs for some distance, but they made good their escape. The next spring one of my Eskimo hunters came upon a young bear near Cape Parry, and in the spring of 1894 five were brought in from Kane Basin.

During my 1905–06 expedition one bear was killed near Cape Sabine, another in crossing Kane Basin, and two on the northern shore of Bache Peninsula. Only one was obtained during my last trip, and that in James Ross Bay; but on our way from Cape Columbia to the pole we discovered fresh polar bear tracks over two hundred miles from land, and on our return came across tracks of what we believed to be the same bear.

Actual measurements of the broad plantigrade footprints of a bear on one of my earlier expeditions gave a width of eleven inches, with a length of twenty-two inches; but the dragging toes and hair of the animal’s heels in the soft snow made a much larger trail, closely resembling that of a man on snow-shoes.

Chief among the smaller animals of the North are the polar hares, which are found occasionally on southern slopes, even as far north as the northern shores of Grant Land. Like the penguins of the antarctic regions, they have not yet learned to fear man, and it is possible to get almost close enough to pick them up. On my last expedition members of the party discovered hundreds of these little animals around Lake Hazen, and succeeded in getting near enough to hit them over the head with their rifles instead of shooting. A stray hare or two picked up on sledge-trips make a very acceptable change in the monotonous diet of pemmican.

While it can scarcely be said that the sea-birds of the North are hunted, still thousands upon thousands of little auks and guillemots are caught every year by the Eskimos with their nets, and laid by for the long winter. At Red Cliff House, in 1891–93, millions of these birds were to be seen in the summer months, and boat-trips were made to the loomeries of Hakluyt, Northumberland, and Herbert Islands for a supply of them. In the clefts of the perpendicular cliffs of these islands the Brunnich’s guillemots breed by the thousands. Our method of capturing them was to run the boat up to the cliffs after as many as could be kept track of had been shot, and while one man collected the dead birds, another kept the boat off the rocks with his boat-hook. Not over thirty per cent. of the birds killed would fall into the water, the majority of them catching on the cliffs, where it was impossible to get at them. Millions of guillemots, kittiwakes, and little auks, as well as numerous looms, burgomasters, and falcons, are to be found along the cliffs between Cape York and Conical Rock. With vast throngs of these birds perched on every projecting rock or ledge, these cliffs appear to be fairly alive. Eider-ducks are on Duck Islands of Melville Bay and McGary Island in considerable quantities. Two stray ones were killed near Cape Belknap in 1907.

Brant also are found on the northern coast of Grant Land; after my return from “farthest north” in 1906 we came across groups of ten or eleven, and near Cape Thomas Hubbard I discovered a flock of as many as one hundred of these birds.

The only available fish in the north are found in the landlocked lakes of that region. They will not touch bait, and the Eskimo method of catching them with a spear had to be adopted by us. The native spears are made by setting a nail or any sharp bit of steel in the end of a shaft. Two pieces of deer antler are bound with fine cord to each side of the shaft so that they point downward, and sharp nails are then set in these, pointing inward. A hole is cut in the ice, and a small fish carved from ivory, in which art the Eskimos are surprisingly expert, is dropped into the water. A fish, rising to examine the decoy, is immediately thrust with the spear, which, pressing down on its back, causes the portions of antler to spread, and the nails to sink into its flesh and makes escape almost impossible.

My confidence in the ability of the country to furnish the fresh-meat supply of my expeditions has always been justified by results. Even in 1905–06, when, with the long polar night upon us, I had to face the serious proposition of feeding my dogs and most of my Eskimos entirely upon the country because the whale meat purchased in Labrador proved to be bad and had to be thrown away, I found it possible to subsist them upon the country’s resources. It is quite true, though, that such a thing would have been absolutely impossible had it not been for my thorough knowledge of this region. Nor should I have found an abundance of game along the most northerly lands,—the northern coasts of Greenland and Grant Land,—where Nares and Greely’s parties found practically none, and were reduced to most serious straits, had it not been for my previous years of training and experience in how and where to look for polar game.