I40 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



think he was an early cub of the year before, and perhaps was 

 about eighteen months old. 



Having spent two hours after daylight the next morning 

 looking in vain for more bears, I decided to make an expedition 

 up to the lake which lay some four miles above my camp. The 

 reports circulated by the natives and some white hunters who 

 had visited this lake, regarding the number of bears to be 

 seen there, made me curious to have a look at it, although it 

 was the wrong time of year to find bears there, seeing that 

 they were busy catching salmon in the various rivers all over 

 the country and would not collect round the lake until the fall 

 of the year, when the salmon would be dying after spawning 

 and would fall an easy prey to the bears in the shallow water 

 along the shore. An old hunter who spent a season hunting 

 there some few years ago, when brown bear skins fetched a 

 good price in the fur-market, told me that in a few weeks he 

 and his partner had killed fifty-two bears around this lake, 

 and on one occasion, late in the season, they had counted 

 sixty-four bears in three days fishing along the shore. I was 

 able subsequently to prove the first statement correct, so 

 there is no reason to doubt the latter one, although it sounds 

 a tall order. 



The lake itself was some seven or eight miles long by three 

 miles wide. At the head, and on two sides, rose high hills 

 with dense alders growing on the lower slopes. It was a 

 most picturesque spot, and I was glad not to have missed the 

 opportunity of seeing it, more particularly as it furnished 

 me with the most remarkable spectacle I witnessed in 

 Alaska. 



The men towed a bidarki up the river whilst I walked 

 to the spot where the stream issued from the lake. As 

 already stated, the Alaska red salmon were then at the 



