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        "John A. Pope Papers",
        "Diary and Related Records of the Morrissey Expedition"
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    "seq": 84,
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    "ocrText": "4\nTHE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 27, 1927\nARCTIC LIFE STILL TURNS ON THE HUNT\nBy GEORGE PALMER PUTNAM\nThere Is Exciting Sport for the Explorer in What Is\nslaughtered the friendly Nanook,\na\nwhich had paddled around prac-\nOULD you not like to\nW\ntically back to back with the ex-\nleave this cold, hard\nSerious and Dangerous Business for the Eskimo\nplorer for twenty minutes or more.\ncountry of yours and go\nThis Summer in the Baffin Is\nto that world that lies\nland region we ourselves had one\ndown there below the horizon, to\nthe South?\n\"Like a walrus on land, eh?\"\nkill with a gingle swipe of his\ncould do was to cling to a block\nespecially lively experience with\nNanook. That was on Mill Island\nThat query, in one form or an-\nqueried Avalisha.\nmighty paw.\nof ice and float around.\nat the western end of Hudson\nother, I have put to Eskimos in\nSubstantially that, we admitted.\nKnud Rasmussen, the eminent\n\"At once the bear seemed to feel\nStrait, when we were making a\nfar North Greenland. Generally,\nThe Eskimo pondered the prob-\nDanish explorer and Eskimo au-\nhimself a partner of mine,\" Ras-\nmussen told me. \"He was neither\ntrip around the island in our whale\nthe answer ie negative. They are\nlem and shook his head.\nthority, who has spent much of his\nboat. Our little craft was tempo-\nhappy where they are and they\n\"He is no good to eat,\" was\nlife in the Arctic, tells a story of\nfrightened nor hostile. He seemed\nfear the mysteries of other climes.\nAvalisha's final judgment. \"He\na bear hunt of his own in North\nto reason it out that we were both\nrarily locked in a small bay by\npack ice drifted solid across its\nMy prize, specific reply came from\nhas blubber for oil. His hide is\nGreenland. Rasmussen was far out\nin the same boat, and the howling\nmouth by the swift currents. The\nan old man who had lived his sixty\nuseless, and he has no ivory. Horse\non a pack and his single Eskimo\ndogs around the edge of our little\ntides along these shores move at a\nyears or more (and that is a long just no good except to look pretty.' companion happened to have fall- lake were common enemies. He rate of from three to seven knots,\nspan for an Eskimo) on the shores\nThe king beasts of the North are en behind him a mile or so. He actually swam close to me and\ndriving the pack ice along in\nof Whale Sound.\n28\nswirling masses, which make navi-\n\"For many, many seasons,' he\ngation anything but easy. On this\nsaid, in effect, \"I have watched,\nparticular day the fog, moving\neach Summer, as the ice drifted\nabout in thick patches at the whim\ndown from Kane Basin, and to-\nof the wind, added a further com-\ngether with the huge packs of\nplication.\nSmith Sound has moved south.\nFrom the shore across from the\nAll Spring and Summer, each year\nbay where the whaleboat lay ice-\n--ice, always ice, forever moving\nbound we saw a big bear. He was\nsouth. What a dreadful place\nperhaps half a mile out on the ice.\nmust be the country to the south!\"\nBetween us and him the pack was\nIn that observation there was, I\nparading along at a great rate,\nsuspect, no small element of sly\nprobably from four to six miles an\nsophistication. They possess plen-\nhour. Here and there were solid\ntifully a sense of humor, those un-\nsheets, acres in extent, but for the\nspoiled primitives of the remoter\nmost part it was broken up and\nregions.\nloose, with many leads of open\nPinned down, I hazard, unwilling-\nwater winding around and through\nness to essay migration to mys-\nit.\nterious temperate climes (if chance\noffered-which, for their own good\nR\nOBERT PEARY, son of the\nit never should) is due perhaps\nNorth Pole's discoverer, and\nmost Targely to the fear of finding\nJohn Pope of Detroit, with me\nthemselves away from the game\nat the moment, wanted that bear,\nthey know best. The animals of\nand they got him. The getting was\nthe Arctic are their best friends.\na very fine bit of hard hunting\nUpon the Northman's knowledge of\nwith a good measure of risk.\nhis four-footed and swimming\nThe boys had .38 revolvers\nneigbbors depends his very exis-\nWith these strapped on their belts,\ntence. To live he must be a good\nand each with a seal \"bat\" to hely\nhunter, versed in the lore of his\nget over the ice, they started cros\nquarry.\ncountry toward the bear.\nSummer, in Baffin\ngreat run they maue over that\nIsland, we talked at length of our\nmoving ice, zigzagging from cake\nanimals of the South. Our two\nto cake, jumping leads, using\nEskimo friends, Avalisha and Ka-\nsmaller pans to ferry across bits\nvaou, were far more interested in\nof open water, climbing over hum-\nour account of lions, monkeys,\nmocks and slithering down slippery\nelephants and the like than with\nslopes, always using their seal bats\nany wonders of human creation we\nas Alpine stocks.\ncould describe. To them animals\nThen, just as they approached the\nwere vastly more alluring than sky-\nbear, the fog settled down. The\nscrapers, railroad trains and air-\nhunters passed out of sight. We\nplanes. Pictures from zoos and\nheard a salvo of shots Shortly\njungles fascinated them.\nthere were three more reports, the\nThey exist, remember, in a region\nsignal that they had Nanook.\nwhere, say. cats and snakes are\nThat was all very well, but how\nunknown. Imagine the thrill of\nwere they to get him ashore; and,\nfirst acquaintance with these odd\nmore important still, how were we\nbeasts-illustrations from the maga-\nto find them I admit an anxious\nzines on board our schooner, the\nhour followed for us at the shore\nMorrissey, amplified with descrip-\nend. Knowing the boys, I was\ntions usually expounded by the ex-\nconfident they would not give up\npedition's two youngsters, David\ntheir hard-won trophy, and if they\nand Deric, assiduous in swopping\nstayed with it, where might they\ninformation with their \"husky\"\ndrift to? If and when the fog\nfriends.\nlifted where and how would we\n***\nfind them?\nTHE two Eskimos, Avalisha and\nWe went back to the whaleboat\nKavaou, lived in a cubby-hole\nand carried across the spit of land\nof the Morrissey's tiny en-\nthe light Meraco tender, which\ngine room. Their 'stateroom\" was\nis a sturdy little craft somewhat\npart of a shelf-like platform with\nstronger and heavier than a canoe.\nship's stores piled below, around\nWe could hear a shot occasionally,\nand above them. There they spread\nand guided by that put out from\ntheir caribou skins for sleeping or\nshore with a compass to give us\nsquatted contentedly by the hour,\nthe course back again. By that\nespecially in the evenings, glorying\ntime the thickest of the ice had\nin the luxury of an electric light\nparaded past and the ample open\nbulb that was hung just above\nwater gave reasonably easy going\nthem.\nexcept for the complication of the\nPolar Bears Swimming in the Arctic-A Mother and Two Cubs.\nThere they would carve little fig-\nfog.\nures out of the ivory of walrus\nA mile away we found them.\nthe Polar bear and the walrus. spied a particularly large polar stayed so near that often I felt him They had come up close to Nanook\ntusks, fashioning with rare skill\nEach dominates his special sphere.\nbear and gave chase, his dogs\nminiatures of kayaks, Polar bears\ntouch me, his head generally\nand finished him with their revol-\nWe are apt to think of the bear as\npromptly catching up with the bear\nturned toward the dogs, snarling\nand the like. Or they would pore\nvers, something of a feat in itself.\nessentially a land beast, but as a\nand harassing him. Nanook took to\ndefiance.\nover magazines, chattering de-\nWhen they fired the last shot the\nfact Nanook is pretty genuinely\nthe water, swimming out into the\n\"It was an extraordinary experi-\nlightedly as they discussed the\ngallant old bear was climbing\namphibian. He may walk like a\nmiddle of a small pool in the ice,\nence. Everything was reversed.\npietures; and talk by the hour with\naboard the pan upon which they\nman, but he certainly swims like\nperhaps twenty yards in diameter.\nI was a companion of the hunted,\nthe boys or any other members of\nstood, to fight the matter out.\na seal. His habitat is primarily\nHe was not particularly concerned\nsharing his predicament and his\nthe expeditions who chanced to\nWith a belt through his jaw they\nthe Aretic ice pack, and where you\nwith the man, but the dogs fright-\nsympathy.'\ncontrived to fasten the bear to that\nvisit with them. The talk,\nof\nfind seals you will find him, for\nened and annoyed him greatly.\nIn the meantime Rasmussen's\npan. Of course, they could not\ncourse, was rather limited, even\nthe seal is the chief item of his\nRasmussen came up. In some\nEskimo came up, and just in time\nraise the 800 pounds of him on to\nwith the boys, whose command of\ndiet, and a wonderfully canny\nhunter he is.\nway, probably too intent in watch-\nto rescue his companion, who lost\nthe ice. By miraculous good luck\nEskimo excelled that of their\ning the b ar, he got on thin ice\nconsciousness from cold and ex-\nthe pan and boys and bear had\nelders.\nThere are stories of bear and\nand suddenly found himself\nhaustion as the Eskimo dragged\ndrifted ashore on a neighboring\nI remember particularly one\nwalrus occasionally fighting. An\nplunged into the pool, and there\nhim up on the ice. Recovering\nisland, which none of us had been\nnight we told them what a horse\nextraordinary battle it must be,\nhe was, paddling around with the\nconsciousness, Rasmussen's first\nable to see in the fog. There,\nbut I have yet to talk with a man\nwas. Realize, of course, they had\nbear. Weighed down with his\nwords were to implore the Eskimo\nphilosophically, the hunters waited\nwho actually has witnessed such a\nnever seen a horse. They listened\nheavy furs in the icy water, he\nnot to shoot the bear. But\nun-\nfor us, and there we found them.\ncombat. A bear, I am told, will at-\ncould not clam per out on the thin\npatiently, asking many questions.\nfortunately the husky, acting upon\nSeal and walrus are, of course\ntack young walrus, which he can\nice\nat\nthe\nedge.\nThe\nmost\nhe\nhunter's\nimpulse,\nhad already the main food reliance of the E's-"
}