212 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



As for the members of my traveling parties, we have never become 

 really used to bear meat, although I have myself killed several 

 dozen bears and been present at the killing of many dozen others. 

 Bear has one fundamental defect that has nothing to do with the 

 taste or toughness but lies in the stringy nature of the meat of any 

 but the youngest. The fibers have a way of getting between the 

 teeth and sticking there, making the gums sore, so that after a week 

 or two of bear meat, chewing becomes painful. This applies to the 

 cooked meat, not to the raw. Cooking increases the toughness and 

 brings out the stringiness. I have never eaten any raw meat that 

 was noticeably tough or stringy. Chewing half-frozen meat is like 

 chewing hard ice-cream, while eating unfrozen raw meat cut in small 

 pieces is like eating raw oysters. 



A second bear came into camp about ten hours after the first. 

 His entry was a good deal more dramatic. As usual, our six dogs 

 were tied near the tent, strung out at intervals of about six feet along 

 the tie line that was fastened at both ends to chunks of ice. All 

 of us were about a quarter of a mile away, Storkerson and Ole in 

 the sled boat, paddling around about fifty yards from the solid ice, 

 and I with my glasses standing on a hummock directing them where 

 to find a dead seal that was partly hidden by some moving mush ice. 

 My back was towards the camp but Storkerson, who was in the 

 stern and faced it, noticed a bear about a hundred yards from the 

 dogs, advancing towards them at a steady walk. I started for camp 

 on a run, and just then the bear caught sight of the dogs and 

 began to stalk them. They were all lying down but with their 

 heads up looking in our direction, for the wind had brought them 

 the smell of the killed seals. I foolishly shouted to them and this 

 only fastened their attention more strongly on me. They were 

 still oblivious of the bear, which had slunk to one side to be hidden 

 by an ice hummock, and with legs bent and almost sliding on his 

 belly was slowly moving towards them. The shielding hummock 

 was about twenty yards from the dogs, and I knew that when he 

 got that close he would make a dash from cover, yet without any 

 suspicion that his attack was aimed at a dog, not at a seal. When 

 a bear pounces on a seal he gets him between his claws first but 

 bites him almost simultaneously. This action would be so in- 

 stinctive that by the time he realized by smell or otherwise that he 

 was not dealing with a seal the dog would be dead or maimed. 



The bear got to the hummock, and half stood up as he rounded 

 it preparatory to making his dash. I was then about a hundred and 

 twenty-five yards away and was badly out of breath, after a run 



