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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



home with a sail-maker's needle and 

 palm. In fact, although we all worked 

 on it, he was really the one who made 

 the tent habitable. Eater he was again 

 invaluable to us as a cobbler, for we 

 found that we had to do most of our 

 hunting in rubber boots on account of 

 the wet, and the daily mountain climb- 

 ing wore them out very rapidly. Each 

 of the party wore out two pairs of rub- 

 ber boots and two pairs of "shoe packs" 

 (shoes with rubber feet and leather tops, 

 theoretically water-proof to the knee), 

 and when they were gone Mike cut off 

 the legs of the rubber boots, which were 

 still whole, and sewed them to some ordi- 

 nary tramping boots which we had up to 

 that time found no use for. 



Our menu was very good most of the 

 time, for the country contained quan- 

 tities of caribou, Arctic hare, porcupine, 

 and ground squirrels, besides ducks, 

 ptarmigan, small shore and land birds, 

 and an occasional goose and white swan. 

 Of course the bay swarmed with gulls, 

 and we found their eggs excellent and 

 easy to gather, for, although Port Moller 

 Bay is 10 miles long and four or five 

 wide, it contains only two very small 

 islands, and these are literally covered 

 with gulls' nests. Our principal staple 

 when we left the neighborhood of Gull 

 Island was caribou meat, and we found 

 it very good and that we did not tire of 

 it as quickly as is the case with most 

 game. The liver, eaten within twelve 

 hours from the time the animal is killed, 

 as is possible under these circumstances, 

 is far better than the calf's liver one 

 gets in the market, and is, in fact, en- 

 tirely different in flavor. 



We had with us, of course, such staples 

 as flour, sugar, baking powder, corn and 

 oat meal, rice, salt, tea, bacon, and dried 

 fruits, the latter being very acceptable 

 in the absence of fresh vegetables. 



The country is very rugged, and dur- 

 ing the early weeks of our trip the heavy 

 snow, soggy with the rain and fog, made 

 hunting very difficult, especially as the 

 bears kept well up to the tops of the 

 mountains until the snow left the slopes 

 bare, and they could browse on the young 



grass and alder buds lower down. We 

 were soaked with the rain from morning 

 until night, and the streams, fed by the 

 melting snow and glaciers, are often 

 waist deep and must be waded many 

 times a day. They are so swift and 

 rocky, however, that we had to tow the 

 canoe up when we transported our dun- 

 nage from the boat to camp, and even 

 running down we always prepared for a 

 capsize and were seldom disappointed. 



The method of hunting was, to the 

 uninitiated, rather curious. We left 

 camp about 7 o'clock and made ourselves 

 comfortable on the first knoll which gave 

 us a good view of the surrounding coun- 

 try. Here we spent from half an hour to 

 two hours examining every foot of the 

 country in sight with our field glasses, 

 which were good binoculars, to discover 

 a bear or some fresh tracks in the snow- 

 fields. The bear were generally two or 

 three miles away when first seen, and a 

 long stalk, sometimes lasting four or five 

 hours, followed, the shots being made at 

 distances ranging from 50 to 350 yards. 



If nothing was seen from the first 

 lookout, we moved some miles to another 

 and repeated the same tactics, the total 

 country examined in a day by the whole 

 party (which usually went out in two 

 divisions, one taking Alfred and the 

 other taking Mike) being enormous, al- 

 though we seldom traveled more than 15 

 miles. 



On one occasion, very early in the 

 season, I was out with Alfred, and about 

 10 in the morning sighted a bear and a 

 cub playing in the snow on the top of a 

 ridge perhaps 300 feet above the valley 

 floor. Our stalk was a difficult one, 

 first over snow and then over slide-rock, 

 where the slope was so steep that it was 

 quite bare. Although the temperature 

 was several degrees below freezing, we 

 stripped to our undershirts and were 

 dripping with perspiration before we 

 reached the crest by the opposite slope 

 from the bears. They had not gone far, 

 and were about 75 yards away and below 

 us. Between us and them we saw a 

 hole in the snow, which turned out to be 

 the den which they had just left after 



