"The shapeless bear
With dangling ice, all horrid, stalks forlorn,
Slow paced, and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift,
And with stem patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against the assailing want."
_May 20th. Tuesday._ We were quite close to Disco in the morning.
However, the Captain decided not to go into the settlement, Godhaven,
where many other ships lay, but to go west, as the straits appeared
tolerably free from ice in that direction. Accordingly, about noon, we
turned our bows westward, having a solid looking floe to the north of
us and open water to the south. This was all good fishing ground and
we might have picked up a big whale, but we did not see a single spout
while we were in the neighborhood.
Birds were getting numerous, now that we were amongst the ice, and the
edge of the floe was lined with little auks in some places. They were
important-looking fellows, like diminutive penguins.
Disco looked wild and forbidding as we steamed away from it, with snow
lodged in all the sheltered places.
The island rose to a height of about three thousand feet and much of the
coast on the west side of it was precipitous and exposed, so that there
were always bare rock faces, which gave a patchy appearance to that
place.
To the north of us, many big bergs could be seen, which had come
originally from Waggate Straits. Two tremendous ones were at one time
aground in this place, in very deep water. They were described by
Crants, who tells us that they were there for years.
We had steamed for some distance to the west, along the floe edge, when
the lookout called down that he saw a bear on an island of ice, a few
points on our starboard bow. I heard him, so immediately went for my
rifle. A boat was lowered and we rowed to the island. George Matheson,
one of our harpooners, and myself immediately landed, and the boat left
us, intending to row around the island so as to intercept bruin, should
he attempt to swim to the main floe.
As this was the first wild bear I had ever seen, I was unfamiliar with
their ways, but learned afterwards that unless the hunter came suddenly
upon one, or unless it had cubs, it would almost invariably retreat and
probably take to the water. Of course, it might not know the whereabouts
of the hunter, and in that case it would be as liable to go in his
direction as any other.
This particular animal was an exception to all rules; for before we had
gone very far we found that he was coming straight toward us. Owing to
the nature of the ice, he could not always be seen, but occasionally he
would stand up and take his bearings, when we could see each other. I
was an active youth, George was a heavy man in excellent condition,
and if it came to running, he would have had no chance with me, and no
sensible bear would pass him to pursue me.
[Illustration: 0188]
Realizing these things, I had no misgivings, so knelt down and put out
a box of ten cartridges. The har-pooner, seeing my preparations, said:
"For God's sake, don't shoot." He had had experiences with wounded bears
before, which he did not wish to repeat. It seemed to me, however, that,
between the two of us, we had things our own way as we had had such
splendid practice at seals a short time before and our hands were in,
so, when bruin stood up to have a look at us, less than a hundred yards
away, I fired and hit him in the head.
I was intensely pleased as it was my first bear and also the first seen
that year by any of the ships.
We had, as spectators, the entire crew, as the ship was not far away
and every one on board was watching. A bear is considered lucky,
considerable trouble being taken to pick one up. As they looked very
yellow in the white ice, they were easily seen. Curiosity, no doubt,
drew this one to us, as we were kneeling down and not moving when he
stood up to look. Had we moved, he would probably have gone away. I kept
the skull, the entire occipital portion of which was shattered, although
the skin wound was small, as the copper-nosed bullets only expanded well
on striking something hard.
The boat came back for us and, after skinning the prize, we went on
board. As there was much heavy ice to the west, we steamed back towards
Disco, and a lead, opening to the north, later in the day, gave us a
chance of going a few miles in the right direction.
_May 21st. Wednesday_. We had come rather close to the land by morning
and were off Disco Fiord. There was very heavy ice coming down and
numbers of bergs about, so navigation was exceedingly difficult and
dangerous, and we made little or no progress until noon, when the ice
slackened and let us go ahead, the wind blowing from the north and
loosening it. In the evening it was very cold, with snow squalls.
I got an ivory gull this day (P. Eburnea) and also a glaucous gull
(Larus Glaucus). The ivory gull positively looked like ivory as it stood
on the ice, and the glaucous gull, with its great spread of snow-white
wings, was beautiful.
[Illustration: 0192]
We were sorry that the ship did not stop at Godhaven, or Lieveley, as it
was generally called, because of its importance as a point of departure
for expeditions. They generally obtained dogs there, and whalers, for
a century and more, had made it a port to call, but this was a race for
the north and no time was to be wasted. We managed to work on our course
all afternoon and during the night, as the wind had slackened the ice.
_May 22nd. Thursday_. During the night, the ship had made considerable
progress, so at noon we were off Hare Island. After tea, we were hooked
on in a pool of water for several hours. I took my gun and went out for
a stroll, killing a number of little auks (Alca Allé or Roach) and a
Richardson's skua. These latter were called, by the sailors, boatswain
birds, because of the long feathers in the tail, resembling a
marlinspike.
As at this time we had the sun night and day, it made me exceedingly
restless. About ten P. M. we were fast again, so, taking my gun, I shot
some black guillemot (U. Grylle), these birds being very numerous. I
returned to the ship about midnight, when it was blowing rather hard.
_May 23rd. Friday_. The wind had died down by morning and the day was
beautiful. We were off Nugsuak Peninsula. There were many tremendous
bergs about and the floe was heavy. In the dim distance we saw a ship
and made our way towards her. To the east of us was the entrance to
Hmanak Fiord, one of the largest on the west coast of Greenland. From
where we were, all fiords looked alike, and it was impossible to tell
islands from mainland. It resembled a sea of ice out of which protruded
rocks and hills, which, excepting on the steep places, were covered with
snow.
Black guillemot and little auks were everywhere in thousands, and it was
pretty to see rows of the latter along the ice edge. They stood
shoulder to shoulder, facing the water, and were very indifferent to our
presence.
By night we had made little progress and the new ship was still
far away. We had been about with the whalers enough by this time to
recognize any of them a long way off by their rigging, smoke or funnel,
so, long before we reached this new vessel, we recognized that she was
a stranger, and she turned out to be the _Cornwallis_. When we left
Dundee, she was outfitting for the Greenland fishing, that is, for
the voyage we ourselves originally intended taking, after leaving
Newfoundland.
The high price of whalebone, however, had induced her owners to send her
to Davis Straits instead. By tea time we were hooked on within a quarter
of a mile of her, and after that meal the Captain sent me on board to
see whether there was any mail for our ship. Climbing on board, I was
amazed to find my friend Armitage there, with a yellow beard and sea
boots; I would not have recognized him. He was greatly surprised to
see me because he believed that I had gone from Newfoundland to the Jan
Mayen fishing, not knowing of our altered arrangements. The _Cornwallis_
was an old barque, formerly in the South American trade. She had had
engines put in, and been fortified for Arctic ice. After I sailed from
Dundee, Armitage, in going around the docks, saw her. He went on board
and, finding Captain Nicol, arranged to sail with him later in the year.
Sending back to the _Aurora_ mail and papers, also some fresh mutton,
which had been sent out to us, I remained on the _Cornwallis_ and heard
the news. I saw her peculiar and useless engines. Captain Nicol said
they spoilt her for sailing and she steamed badly.
_May 24th. Saturday._ It was a beautiful Arctic day when I came on deck
before breakfast. Ahead of us, the world was white, not a break to be
seen anywhere, astern some open water. The _Cornwallis_ was lying on
our port side a few hundred yards away, so that about eleven I went on
board, and, with Armitage, started off to look for something to shoot,
among the hummocks, three or four miles north of where we lay. We spent
hours tramping over the ice, but did not see a track, so we returned to
our ships about six P. M. This hummock belt extended east and west and
had been caused by the rafting of great floes. It was quite smooth from
the ship to the hummocks and also on the other side of them. Half a mile
beyond the ridge, however, there was a great berg which appeared to be
aground.
When I returned on board the _Aurora_, the Captain told me to go below
and have my tea and then to go with the mate back to where I had been,
because he had seen a bear close to us all the time we were there. It
certainly was curious that neither of us had seen him or his tracks.
When we were about a mile away from the ships, I saw Armitage hurrying
after us. I was anxious to wait for him, but the mate insisted on
pushing on, as it would be a fearfully unlucky thing for a member
of another crew to shoot a bear first seen by us. After a little, we
reached a crack in the ice, about two feet wide, so we stepped across
and hurried on. Armitage, coming up shortly after, was unable to cross
as the crack was then eight or ten feet wide and extended indefinitely
in each direction. So the situation righted itself, and my friend
returned to the ship while the mate and I kept on to where the bear had
been seen and there we found tracks in abundance, but no bear. After
an hour's searching, we were returning to the ship when we saw her jib
hauled up as a signal for us to go ahead again, the game having been
spotted by the lookout in the crow's nest. Returning to the hummocks,
we saw the bear strolling from behind the berg beyond. He was coming
straight towards us, so we got down behind the rafted ice and awaited
his approach. It was decided that I should have the first shot as the
mate had killed so many. I allowed the bear to get about a hundred and
fifty yards away before firing, and then put a bullet into him. I don't
know where it hit, but he came down, to be up again at once and to keep
on coming. The mate fired and down he went again, and we kept it up
until the bear was hit many times. Sometimes he fell, sometimes he bit
at the place, and by the time he reached the ridge he was very lame and
badly shot up. He had gone some distance to the west of us, so I stood
up on a slab of ice and finished him, as we thought, by putting a bullet
in his shoulder and dropping him in his tracks. We hurried up our side
of the ridge until we arrived at where he was. Then, climbing over, I
was surprised to find him sitting up. This time my bullet finished him.
Our shooting was nothing to be proud of, and went to show how careful
one should be with bears, because if not hit right, they take a lot of
lead. This was about the only one of those killed that took more than
one or, at the most, two shots.
[Illustration: 0198]
As neither of us had a hunting knife, we had a long job skinning him
with pocket knives. Then we started for the ship, towing the skin, but
when we reached the crack in the ice, it had opened about twenty-five
yards, so we were fairly caught. The mate, with his usual ingenuity,
loosened a pan of ice, and on this we crossed, using the butts of
our rifles as paddles. Arriving at the other side, we were met by two
sailors, sent from the ship, as we were being watched from the barrel,
and they took the bear skin in charge while we made our way on board. As
it was late, we retired as soon as we had had something to eat.
_May 25th.. Sunday._ In the morning, Armitage came on board and saw the
bear skin. He had never seen a polar bear on the ice, so was very much
disappointed that he had not been with us.
Both ships unhooked about ten A. M. and stood north through a lead.
We moved along fairly well and by evening were hooked on close to each
other in a hole of water with a good ice edge.
The _Bear_ and _Triune_ were now in sight, the latter having come from
Dundee direct. We were off Svartin Huk, a great peninsula, but I only
knew this by consulting the chart glued to the cabin table.
The _Cornwallis_ was the "lame duck" of the fleet. Steaming in open
water, she had not more than half our speed, and in heavy ice she could
do little, as her power was so weak. Of course, she could wriggle her
way around floes and along tortuous leads fairly well, especially if
some of the better ships had just been through ahead of her and broken
the trail. The _Cornwallis_ was the only one of the ships coming
direct from Dundee which carried a surgeon, but there were three on the
Newfoundland fleet.
_May 26th. Monday_. We both moved a few miles north this day, but the
ice was very heavy and the conditions for advance unfavorable. Some
distance astern, we saw the _Bear_, but she was not making much headway
and we all three were tied up by noon.
A ship, when anchored to a floe, has her bows against it and a cable out
to an ice anchor on one bow or on both, according to the weather. From
the jib-boom a rope ladder always hangs, so that one can easily get on
to or leave the floe. There is generally a man on the ladder when the
ship approaches the ice, and as she touches, he drops off! and, with an
ice drill, makes a hold for the ice anchor.
Bringing Armitage, we went to a crack up which looms were flying, and
had a pleasant afternoon shooting them. They were fast-flying birds, and
the knowledge of the fact that they would not be wasted gave zest to our
sport. Shooting guillemot rising off the water would not be much fun,
but picking off single birds as they passed was good practice.
The looms we saw in such thousands were, I believe, Uria Brunichii.
The ships were tied up when I turned in.
_May 27th. Tuesday_. The ice was slack, so we kept in a northerly
direction, making good headway. We left the _Cornwallis_ and, following
a good lead, passed the _Narwhal_, which had been the leading ship for
some days.
During the evening, the _Bear_ came after us, but we were able to keep
ahead. Captain Fair-weather decided to give Upernivik a wide berth, as
he once had had an unpleasant experience with the rocks of that charming
Greenland summer resort, so we kept going north all night.
There was a wonderful amount of life on board a whaler, on account of
the crew being so large. In the 'tween-decks, one generally found a
number of men at work, picking oakum, spinning rope yarn, or other
yarns, and weaving sennet. The carpenter and his assistant were found at
work in one place, the cooper busy in another, while the sailmaker
sat and sewed. On the deck, in some sheltered corner, one found the
blacksmith at work, and there were always jobs being done in the engine
room. But it was easy work, none of the dog's life one saw on other
ships.
There are said to be runic monuments in the vicinity of Upernivik,
and one on Woman's Island is said to bear the date of 1135. The early
travellers, who are supposed to be responsible for these records, are
also said to have visited Lancaster Sound.
When one considers that Baffin circumnavigated the bay which bears his
name, in 1616, in a craft of fifty-five tons, and when one examines a
Viking ship of a thousand years ago and finds it a substantial clinker
built boat, a hundred feet long with fine beam, one sees no reason why a
twelfth century vessel could not make her way to Lancaster Sound.
_May 28th. Wednesday_. We had a day racing with the Bear. She managed to
pass us just before we reached Browns Island, and hooked on to the floe
some distance from us. After a little, the _Narwhal_ joined us, and
later the _Cornwallis_. Armitage and I went off in our dingey and had
a few pleasant hours shooting looms. We shot a lot of them, which
were divided between the two ships. It took me some time to overcome a
prejudice and to become accustomed to seeing looms on the table in
any shape or form, but they were really much better than any ducks we
killed, because they were not at all fishy and our cook understood about
skinning them. They tasted rather like roast hare.
During the afternoon, the weather was thick and it was snowing. The
coast of Greenland, at this point, was fringed by hundreds of islands
of all sizes and shapes. They were everywhere and some had names while
others had not. One navigated there by rule of thumb, only moving when
landmarks could be seen, and avoiding visible dangers. Occasionally,
something one did not see, destroyed the ship, as there were hundreds of
uncharted rocks. In approaching a settlement, a native generally came on
hoard and pointed out the way, but the coast was a dangerous one and the
ships only kept close to it in order that they might avoid the terrible
middle pack.
[Illustration: 0204]
_May 29th. Thursday._ We were bumping along towards the west when I
came on deck, as the ice looked slacker in that direction, but we had to
return shortly after breakfast and, after thrashing around for most
of the morning, we managed to strike a good lead and gain a few miles.
There was no shooting, as the ship did not stop.
The _Cornwallis_ kept near us all day, and the _Narwhal_ was not far
away. As we were now on the edge of the notorious Melville Bay, it
became interesting. Greely's famous thirty-six hour passage was not
going to be repeated by us, that was evident. I recalled Cheynes'
account of its dangers, but we were so comfortable on board the
_Aurora_, and meals were served with such regularity, that it was only
possible to realize the danger by watching floes crunch into each other
as they were pressed together by irresistible forces. We hooked on at
night with little in sight but floes and bergs.
It is a wonderful thing to see a berg ploughing its way through a frozen
sea, slowly but surely, overcoming all obstacles, provided, always, that
the water was deep enough to keep its mighty base from grounding. On
this day there were dozens in sight. They were in every direction
and one could easily understand the hopelessness of a sailing ship's
position, beset in these waters, with a gale driving bergs down upon
her.
_May 30th. Friday_. We were lying, hooked on to the floe, in the
forenoon, when I looked over the side and saw a beautiful male King
eider duck (S. Spectabilis) sitting on the water within ten feet of the
Captain's port. The Captain was in bed, as he had been in the crow's
nest for days, nearly all the time. His port was open and I did not want
to wake him, so, taking a gun, I went on the ice and, firing from there,
killed the bird without the report being heard in the cabin, and the
dog, Jock, went out and brought the bird in. It was the first King eider
I had shot and it looked beautiful in its spring plumage. The striking
thing about the bird was the enormous frontal processes bulging high
above the bill and brightly colored. These were soft and shrank rapidly
as they dried, losing their color. The plumage was a mixture of black,
white, pearl gray and sea green, making a gorgeous whole. The first bird
one sees of a beautiful species always excites more admiration than the
others, and so I was delighted with this and carefully skinned it.
The evening made no change in the conditions and we remained fast all
night.
_May 31st. Saturday_. All the ships were stuck in the morning. The
_Cornwallis_ and _Narwhal_ were some distance astern, the _Arctic_ near
the shore, the _Nova Zembla_ and _Polynia_ close together to the west
of us. There were an immense number of bergs, some of them, no doubt,
aground, as there were many islands and rocks. We were lying off
Tassuisak, a not very populous place, and I was in hope that some
natives, seeing the ships, would come off.
[Illustration: 0208]
During the afternoon, we got under way and poked about without moving
much further north. When we were crossing any open places, the ship
steamed very slowly and a man was kept forward, on the lookout for
submerged rocks.