A BEAR HUNT 91 



The six animals killed were skinned and their meat 

 cached as a future food supply. The natives claim 

 that for the purpose of variety dog flesh is very good 

 food, and they like it well. I made one attempt to 

 eat it. Some of the meat had been boiled in seal fat, 

 and looked rather tempting. I accepted a piece of 

 it, and made an honest effort to swallow it, but could 

 not force myself to do so. I had not yet approached 

 quite near enough to the primordial. If I had been 

 hungry, with nothing better to eat, it doubtless would 

 have been different, and qualms and prejudices would 

 have been forgotten. 



The Eskimo dogs were a source of great interest 

 to me. They would break into seemingly impossible 

 places, and devour every imaginable thing that fell 

 within their reach. A bottle of whiskey that I was 

 reserving in a box, packed in straw, was found two 

 hundred yards from camp by Kudlar's kooner, and 

 returned to me. The dogs had broken into the box 

 and carried the bottle away. It seems hard to believe, 

 but I discovered that they would actually open tin 

 cans to get at the contents. 



I do not know of any other animal that could with- 

 stand and live through the hardships to which these 

 dogs are subjected. They are beaten, kicked and 

 starved continually. The Eskimos claim they are the 

 better workers for it, and that kindness makes them 

 lazy. Some of the dogs were addicted to chewing 

 their traces, and I saw the Eskimo masters hammer 

 out the back teeth as a preventative. The poor dogs 

 bled so profusely that I thought they would die, but 



