POLAR BEAR AT HERALD ISLAND 113 



dred yards and then, turning a corner, made fast to a 

 heavy floe. Soon the mist lifted and revealed the steep 

 crags of Herald Island some twenty miles to the west. 



Herald Island is a granite formation about six miles 

 long, two miles broad and some 1,200 feet high. It was 

 discovered by Kellett in 1849 and named for his ship. 

 Polar bears, white foxes, gulls, murres, auks, guillemots 

 and other birds live on it, amid a scanty vegetation of 

 poppies, grasses, moss, lichens, sedges and dwarf willows. 

 This rocky upthrust of soil into the bleak Arctic Ocean 

 acts as a pivot or anchorage for vast fields of ice. So 

 well as we could see, the pack to which we were moored 

 extended soUd to the islet. 



Several hours we lay idle, and then made off. A 

 lead took us east for a short distance and after supper 

 the cook spied a great bear staring at us from the top 

 of a hummock at the edge of the floe not two hundred 

 yards away. Two cubs immediately showed themselves 

 beside her, and Colhns, Lovering and Kleinschmidt put 

 out at once in the kayaks. But the quarry did not wait. 

 They turned and walked leisurely into the ice-pack, and 

 from the crow's nest one could see them moving across 

 the frozen field toward the north end of the island. The 

 mate sighted four others which were moving in the same 

 direction from a point not far distant; all were much 

 beyond reach before the hunters had landed. The men 

 followed the bear tracks a few hundred yards and stood, 

 puzzled, their vision limited by the innumerable hum- 

 mocks. We, aloft, could make out still another bear 

 quite near them, but had no means of signaHng our 

 friends and the great animal slowly moved away without 

 hurry, pausing frequently to gaze at the apparition of 

 our masts which jutted into his view. 



