260 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



Words cannot express my relief when one night 

 after dark we reached Annootok, and the little box 

 shack, warm and cosy, seemed to me the most comfort- 

 able place it had ever been my experience to enjoy. 



My feet were so badly swollen that one boot could 

 only be removed by cutting it away. Both feet were 

 blistered, and some flesh pulled off, but I was thankful 

 to find that the toes were uninjured. 



Thus ended my first bear hunt in the Arctic, un- 

 successful and disappointing", but certainly eventful." 



A small rifle, a revolver, a knife, and an axe between 

 four men are hardly sufficient equipment for hunting 

 the polar bear, yet these were the only weapons 

 possessed by Mr. J. W. Tyrrell and his companions 

 when they encountered the bears. What happened 

 is told in Mr. Tyrrell's book of exploration in the 

 sub-Arctics of Canada, and is sufficiently thrilling to 

 reproduce here l : " We were a small detachment of 

 explorers, travelling at the time in the little steam- 

 launch of a scientific expedition, and occupied in the 

 geographical determination of a group of hitherto un- 

 known islands. The personnel of our party, without 

 giving full names, was as follows : the doctor, who 

 occupied a position in the stern of the boat and acted 

 as steersman ; Mac, who, contrary to orders, had 

 smuggled a small rifle on board, and come with us 

 for sport ; Con., an able seaman from Newfoundland, 

 and myself. 



The reason for orders having been given by our 



commander to take no rifles with us was doubtless 



that we might not allow sport to interfere with the 



object of our commission. Beside Mac's single-shot 



1 See Bibliography, 20. 



