160 VIKINGS OF TO-DAY 



the above occasion those close to . the ship did not 

 grow nearly as rapidly as those farther away, for the 

 dams were shy about coming to give them suck. 



The " whitecoats " are not large enough to kill until 

 they are fourteen days' old, so that on this occasion 

 the crew had to wait. Now, however, by law no 

 sailing vessel may leave for the ice until the 8th of 

 March, and no steamer till the i2th, under a penalty 

 of $2,000, which gives the seals a chance to get 

 sizeable ; nor is a vessel now allowed to make a 

 second voyage the same year, if she has once come 

 back loaded. This prevents the extermination of the 

 mother seals. Great excitement always exists when 

 the sealers are about to start ; sometimes it is neces- 

 ,-sary to cut their way out of the harbour, in which 

 they have been imprisoned during the winter months, 

 with dynamite, saws, and crowbars, the way being 

 cleared beforehand, that not an hour may be lost 

 after the clocks announce midnight of the nth. 

 This year, 1894, while blasting a way out of the ice 

 in Greenspond Harbour, the s.s. Walrus was severely 

 damaged by the explosion of the dynamite, which 

 shattered her bows, and killed some of her men. 

 The ice was ten feet thick. 



The vessels may start from any part of the island, 

 north or south, but no one place is always best, the 

 position of the seals varying every season. There is 

 much competition to get a place among the crews, 

 and the men are carefully selected for their pluck, 

 energy, experience, and physical capacities. These 



