286 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



man at last got a shot in, the bear fell dead. He found 

 on walking up that the dog killed was the leader of his 

 team and his favorite dog. He told me himself later that 

 he would rather have ten bears escape than lose one such 

 dog. This was partly sentiment; but even in money one 

 good leader dog was worth as much as the skins of two 

 or three bears. 



I have seen several other hunts where dogs were set on 

 bears and I have read a great deal about this sort of hunt- 

 ing which is common in Greenland and has been employed 

 by certain explorers who work in that locality. The more 

 I see and the more I read, the less inclined I am to favor 

 the method. It is too dangerous to the dogs and if you 

 are a good bear hunter you can get the bear well enough 

 without the use of dogs. 



Although polar bears are much more dangerous than 

 grizzly bears, the risk to men in hunting them is com- 

 monly overrated. Still, there may be danger, as the 

 following story shows: 



It was in the early spring of 1910. Our party were on 

 their way from the Mackenzie district by sled eastward 

 along the north coast of the mainland. We were travel- 

 ing along the shore of Dolphin and Union Straits. The 

 coastline is fairly straight and much of the land right 

 along the coast is low, but a short distance inland there 

 are the foothills of a range of low mountains that run 

 roughly parallel to the coast. My three Eskimo com- 

 panions with our dog team had orders to travel about 

 fifteen miles a day eastward along the coast and to camp 

 at any suitable locality when they estimated that the 

 fifteen-mile distance had been traversed. Our custom 

 was that immediately after breakfast every morning I 

 would leave the camp and walk about three miles directly 



