168 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



the snow grew thin and bare rock appeared. Lower still 

 was nothing but arid volcanic ash on which no vegetation 

 flourished. Only at a distance, where the mossy tundra 

 had grown for centuries unburied by fresh eruptions, was 

 there a loam that nourished alders and willows. Not a 

 tree was visible; not a single tree had we seen for two 

 months on the coasts of Alaska or Siberia. Everywhere 

 was the undulating tundra with its timorous, close- 

 clinging growth, feeding nothing taller than the char- 

 acteristic alders. 



Even the bottom of the bay was composed of the 

 same volcanic ash, through which a vessel's anchor would 

 drag in a hard wind. To have a safe anchorage we beat 

 against the wind half way up the large bay to a little 

 island, less than a mile long, lying about three miles from 

 the western shore. Its precipitous cliffs, the nesting 

 place of eagles and gulls, showed no crevice that would 

 indicate a harbor until we drew abreast of it. Then an 

 entrance, so shallow and so narrow that we barely 

 squeezed through, let us into the perfect, landlocked 

 shelter of Ivan Island. It had two mouths, being in fact 

 formed by two islands, much as if one should break two 

 little pieces out of a cruller. Probably the formation was 

 a long-extinct crater. In this we cast anchor and put 

 the launch overboard. 



Kleinschmidt and Ed Born took Lovering and Col- 

 lins, who had long since bundled up a camping outfit, in 

 the launch and put them ashore to spend ten days hunt- 

 ing caribou. Elting and I wanted to engage a guide, if 

 possible, and Kleinschmidt was to go some seven miles 

 up the bay and bring back Mike Utecht, who had lived 

 there for sixteen years. On gaining the cliffs of the 

 island later in the afternoon we could see the launch 



