UPERNIVIK AND THE DUCK ISLANDS
We left Proven about midnight, and as we started out from the little
harbor past some bare rocky islands Dad and some others went ashore to
try some shooting. When we came in we had seen a great many birds and
ducks flying around there.
They stayed ashore from one o’clock until five, while I was asleep.
Later Dad told me it was very beautiful, the water all grey and calm
like silver, with a sky sort of lead color with gay tints of orange and
yellow and lemon where the sun was low. They brought back tern, eider
ducks and some gulls, some to eat, others to be skinned for specimens.
The next day it was very foggy so we went slowly, dodging icebergs
which we could see only when we got very close to them. At about nine
the following morning we reached Upernivik, which is the last town that
amounts to anything in North Greenland and is I think the furthest
north town in the world. There is a Danish Governor there and a few
other Danes. His name is Governor Otto and he was awfully nice to us,
then and later on when we came back.
Upernivik is a nice little place built on an island. Where we landed
there was only a little wharf and some store houses and supplies. From
this harbor a little path or trail led over a steep hill to the real
town, which was down on the other side on a slope to the south, with a
grand view of Sanderson’s Hope, quite a big mountain a few miles away
and overlooking an open fjord which was no use as a harbor. The village
has a dozen wooden houses, including several that are very nice indeed,
chiefly the Governor’s house and one for the doctor who lives there,
which also is used for a hospital. And about the wooden houses are the
sod huts of the natives, most of whom seem to stick to their own style
of living. There is a fine new church on the hill just over the
village.
We had lunch with Governor Otto and his daughter Ruth, a girl about
twelve years old, at his house, and afterward in the harbor we took
some movies of an Eskimo turning over in his kayak. He didn’t seem to
have a hard time at all. He just kind of fell over on one side, sitting
right in his kayak or skin boat, and then came up on the other side
with just a twist of his paddle. Doing this he wore a watertight suit
of sealskin and a hood over his head, drawn tight about the neck. And
around his waist, where he sat in the hole or cockpit of the kayak,
there was a skin fastened tight about him so that no water could get
in.
Robert Peary thought he would try it so he changed into a sealskin
shirt, got into the Eskimo’s kayak—it was hard for him to squeeze in he
was so much larger than the Eskimo—and turned half way over. The kayak
was upside down and then his head stuck up on the other side and went
down again, sputtering. He just couldn’t manage to get up again, and
hung head down in the water, the boat upside down right over him. I
really thought he was drowning.
Then he came up a second time and yelled for help. Of course we were
close to him and right away Carl got there in a rowboat and he pretty
nearly fell in himself helping to get Robert straightened up. And you
should have seen the Eskimos laugh! They thought it was a great joke.
But Robert seemed to feel he had swallowed about all the ice water of
Baffin Bay that he wanted and he was so cold he went back to the ship
and changed his clothes. But I’ll bet that next summer at home in Maine
he learns the trick.
We had sent some natives out to catch sharks for specimens and Doc,
Ralph and myself went after them in the launch. They had caught four
big ones and had lost another overboard. These Greenland basking shark,
as they are called, are very slow and sluggish. They don’t fight at
all. They move very slowly and don’t seem to be savage or a bit like
the sharks I have seen caught in Florida.
The next morning Governor Otto took us over to see his dogs, which
during the summer he keeps on a bare rocky island about a mile away,
where they are entirely to themselves. About every three days during
the summer they are fed, mostly ducks which are taken out in a big
basket. Most of them seem to have been kept a pretty long time and
become pretty “ripe.” But the dogs certainly like them.
We went over to the island in our launch with the Governor and a couple
of Eskimos carrying the food. When they saw us coming the dogs, about a
dozen in number, crowded down to the shore and followed along as we
went by, yelping and barking crazily. They knew it was dinner time.
We landed and decided to give them the birds up a bit from the water,
where it was more level and Kellerman could get movies better. As the
Eskimos carried up a big basket of the birds, one of them had to keep
the dogs off the man with the basket. He used an oar and beat them. And
at that they jumped up and tried to get at the basket of meat on the
man’s shoulder whenever they got the slightest chance. I don’t doubt
they would have knocked him down if he had been alone.
Then the birds were thrown out to the dogs, a few at a time. In a
second they were torn to pieces and gobbled up. A dog will rip one up
in a flash and choke down everything but the feathers. There were many
fights. And all the time there was a great racket, with the dogs
howling and barking and yapping at each other.
It was very interesting to see the King Dog. Each team up in this
country has a head dog, the King, who is boss. He is usually the
heaviest and best looking dog, and certainly is the best fighter. I
believe he just fights his way up to the leadership. Certainly when he
“says” anything to one of the others, they do what they are told pretty
quickly. Or else they get a licking.
The King has a queen, and it is fun to see the way he looks out for
her. When the Queen got a duck or part of one, the King just sort of
looked on and saw to it that no other dog interfered. If one of them
got excited and started to move in on the Queen and her dinner, the
King gave a growl—and that ended it. Or if another dog had a bit of
duck, and the King came along, the other fellow just dropped what he
had, perhaps running off or sort of turning over on his back and
grovelling on the ground. There certainly was discipline on that
island.
When it was all over there was just a few feathers scattered around on
the rocks and the dogs were mostly with bloody mouths and heads where
they had torn up the meat. Anyway, they all seemed to have had a good
meal and for the first time settled down quietly, to wait for the next
dinner time three days later. In the winter they have their work, and
lots of it, and of course they are awfully important in the life of the
northern people. There are no horses and of course no automobiles or
anything like that. So everything is drawn on sleds, and the sleds are
moved by dogs.
The dog skins are especially fine. The fur is heavy and soft and
glossy. Dad bought some dog skins to have a coat made.
That afternoon we left Upernivik to go north across Melville Bay.
Everyone was on hand to see us off and the Governor fired the little
cannon up on the hill where they had the Danish flag hoisted. They gave
us a salute of three guns and we answered with three shots from a
rifle.
The Duck Islands are a few little rocky islands a dozen miles or so off
the mainland of Greenland just at the south side of Melville Bay. About
two o’clock the next afternoon we reached them, anchoring in a sort of
harbor between the two largest islands. The bigger one is I suppose
about two miles long and half a mile or so wide, very hilly and all
rocks. About the shores, where there is a little level land, the rocks
are covered with moss and there are stretches of bog and mud.
We went around a good deal on both islands and saw a great many eider
ducks which nest here in large quantities. In the old days when the
whalers came into Baffin Bay this was a headquarters and then they used
to gather duck eggs by the boat load.
We saw many ducks nesting. The nest is just a little fluffy round mass
of the soft feathers, right on the ground. They pull the feathers out
of their breasts, so that when you get the female ones they look as if
someone had plucked a handful of down from their undersides. This is
what is called eider down, and is used in very fine mattresses and
pillows. It is very warm and is also quite valuable. The Eskimos
collect the eider down from the nests and from the birds, and it, with
skins of foxes and seal, and a few other articles like walrus ivory and
narwhal tusks, is one of the chief ways they have of trading with the
outer world.
The male and female eider ducks are very different. The female is all
brown, while the male is brown only a little on his breast and belly,
and with a lot of white on his back and neck, and feathers that are
dark grey or nearly black. The female moves very slowly and is very
tame and easy to get close to and to kill. We got a good many for
eating, and they are kept hung in the rigging to be used as Billy the
cook wants them. The male is much wilder and flies faster and is pretty
hard to shoot. There were very few male at Duck Island. While the
females are nesting the males seem to go off by themselves. Later we
saw a good many up in the fjords back of Upernivik. Both are very big
and heavy birds, and awfully good eating.
Back in 1850 and on for thirty years or so there was much whaling in
these waters. Many of the ships came from Scotland. On the hill or
small mountain at Duck Island there is a whaler’s cairn, and also a
walled-in place where they had their lookout. In that cairn, by the
way, in 1888 Peary left a record. We could find nothing. Probably the
Eskimos had cleaned out everything long ago.
In one piece of lowland near the water, where there was a little dirt,
we found the graves of some whalers. They were covered over with stones
and only one head board with a name, was left. It said: “In memory of
William Stewart, A.B., S. S. Triune of Dundee, June 11, 1886. Aged 24.”
Art took me shooting with my sixteen-gauge shotgun, but I didn’t do so
well. I haven’t tried shooting on the wing much and I’m pretty bad at
it. Shooting with the twenty-two rifle seems easier. Art himself is a
grand shot, with either rifle or shotgun.
We found many eggs, and Dad and some of the others, on the other
island, found great caches of eggs, hundreds of them evidently gathered
by Eskimos who had visited the islands earlier in the season and left
them there to get them later. They were put away in a sort of hole with
rocks piled up around and over them so that they were perfectly
protected, and with the chinks of the rock packed up with moss. They
also found the skull of a polar bear.
We found three eggs with little ducks just hatching out. These we
brought back to the boat. I put one under a mother duck which I had
found alive in an Eskimo trap and the other two behind the galley stove
where it was nice and hot. Two of them lived quite a while and then
they were killed, painlessly, and put away for specimens. We got some
nests for the Museum and I got one for my own collection.