HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU 253 



men on the score of illness than fo>: fear they might 

 actually die of hunger. 



But the first day on Isachsen Land was a depressing 

 contradiction to my hopes and expectations. The one 

 man in good health and the two men who were sick had 

 to make their way as best they could along the coast while 

 I hunted inland parallel to their course. I walked that 

 day twenty miles across one of the very few stretches of 

 entirely barren land that I have seen in the Arctic. 

 Under foot was gravel without a blade of grass. Much 

 of the land was lightly covered with snow as in other 

 typical arctic lands in winter, and I looked in vain in the 

 snow for track or other sign of any living thing. 



That evening my men were depressed partly because 

 of their illness and also because it looked as if we had 

 at last come into a region as barren as many people think 

 the polar countries generally are. It was clear that if we 

 saw game the next day we would simply have to have it. 

 Where game is plentiful, you may lose one chance and 

 soon get another; but where it is scarce, you must not 

 allow any opportunity to slip through your fingers. 



I am telling this particular hunting story rather than 

 any other to illustrate the principle of how you must hunt 

 caribou in the polar regions if it is essential that you shall 

 get every animal you see. It certainly was essential in 

 this case, for I wanted not only to stave off immediate 

 hunger but to secure meat enough so we could camp in one 

 place for several weeks to give the sick men a chance to 

 become well. 



Our second day on Isachsen Land the men again fol- 

 lowed the coast line with the sledges, cutting across the 

 shortest distance from point to point while I walked a 

 much longer course inland. I had gone but a few 



