332 



RECREATION. 



THERE WERE BUT 3 DOGS IN THE WHOLE 

 PACK THAT WANTED BEAR." 



picked up a few musk ox skins on 

 nearly every trip I have made to the 

 Arctic region. I usually get also a 

 few caribou skins or heads, and a few 

 polar bear skins. 



For the use of the hunting and trad- 

 ing parties we kept on board a large 

 number of dogs. The only means of 

 transportation in that country is by 

 dog teams, and a good dog is worth 

 as much there as a good horse is in 

 Montana. 



We had about 60 dogs with us in 

 this winter of '98, and it was no small 

 undertaking to feed them. We had 

 secured several carcasses of walrus, 

 and had cached them on the ice, or 

 stored them in the hold of the ship. I 

 had a lot of this meat in a hogshead, 

 on shore, about 200 yards from the 

 ship, arranged in such a way that the 

 dogs could work on it without wast- 

 ing it. 



I say "work on it" advisedly, for of 

 course the meat was frozen as hard 

 as the ice about us, and so the dogs 

 were not likely to get away more of it 

 than they needed. 



These Eskimo dogs are great hust- 

 lers. They will come as near living 

 on wind as any animal I ever saw ; 

 yet when they get a chance to fill up 

 on meat it takes a lot of it to fill their 

 long-felt want. 



Their steady diet, when traveling 

 across country, is frozen fish. Your 

 New York bench show pointers or 

 setters would starve to death on 

 this, yet an Arctic dog will, after a 

 hard day's work, gnaw away on a 

 frozen white fish until far into the 

 night. Then he will dig a hole in the 

 snow, curl up in it and sleep as 

 soundly as your dude pointer will on 

 the Persian rug at the foot of your 

 bed. 



One morning my Indian boy, Ne- 

 ponack, came running up the plank 

 and shouting at the top of his voice 

 that there was a bear near the ship. 



I am not much of a hunter, but I 

 object to being run over by game ; 

 so I always keep a rifle and a belt of 



