TRAPPERS 49 



hunters were leaving for home. They had killed 

 eighty bears. Another band of trappers on 

 Kong Karl Island killed sixty, but were com- 

 pelled to abandon the skins because the ice, 

 remaining unbroken, held back the ships sent 

 to their relief. Towards the end of the summer 

 they succeeded in escaping in a canoe, and by 

 good fortune arrived at the Advent Bay coal 

 mines, after having endured terrible sufferings. 

 At this rate of destruction the Polar bear 

 will, in the course of a very few years, become 

 almost completely extinct, just as has been the 

 case with the walrus, now so rarely to be en- 

 countered. The Polar trapping industry will 

 then disappear. It is this consideration which 

 has induced me to set forth my knowledge of 

 the life and methods of bear hunters. 



