Photograph by Capt. F. 1$. Kleinschmidt 



TOWING HER BABY TO SAFETY 



When a mother polar bear scents danger she jumps into the water and her cub holds 

 fast to her tail while she tows it to safety. But when no danger seems to threaten she wants 

 it to "paddle its own canoe," and boxes its ears or ducks its head under water if it insists 

 on being too lazy to swim for itself. 



oped almost imperial organizations, like 

 the Hudson's Bay Company and its rivals. 

 Many adventurous white men became 

 trappers and traders, and through their 

 energy, and the rivalry of the trading 

 companies, we owe much of the first ex- 

 ploration of the northwestern and north- 

 ern wilderness. The stockaded fur-trad- 

 ing stations were the outposts of civiliza- 

 tion across the continent to the shores of 

 Oregon and north to the Arctic coast. At 

 the same time the presence of the sea- 

 otter brought the Russians to occupy the 

 Aleutian Islands, Sitka, and even north- 

 ern California. 



The wealth of mammal life in the seas 



along the shores of North America al- 

 most equaled that on the land. On the 

 east coast there were many millions of 

 harp and hooded seals and walruses, 

 while the Greenland right and other 

 whales were extremely abundant. On the 

 west coast were millions of fur seals, sea- 

 lions, sea-elephants, and walruses, with 

 an equal abundance of whales and hun- 

 dreds of thousands of sea otters. 



Many of the chroniclers dealing with 

 explorations and life on the frontier dur- 

 ing the early period of the occupation of 

 America gave interesting details concern- 

 ing the game animals. AUouez says that 

 in 1680, between Lake Erie and Lake 



386 



