Although the history of Arctic exploration and adventure contains accounts of many a death laid to its charge, yet the ‘polar’ makes but a poor fight against the accurately sighted breechloaders of to-day, and it is very rarely that one hears of the loss of a man in an actual encounter with a bear. And this for several reasons. Unlike the grizzly, the polar has generally to fight his man at a disadvantage. Seen first at a long distance, he commonly requires but little stalking. A boat full of men creeps along the ice edge until within shooting distance, and if when merely wounded the bear has the pluck to charge, he has not the opportunity, for his enemies are on the water, and once he leaves the ice he is completely at their mercy—no match for a man who can handle even a lance or an axe moderately well. Should a man happen to encounter a polar on land or ice, however, the brute’s great size and marvellous vitality naturally make him a somewhat formidable foe, especially as the soles of his feet are covered with close-set hairs, which enable him to go on slippery ice as securely as upon terra firma. This characteristic of having the sole of the foot covered with hair is peculiar to Ursus maritimus. But even when encountered on ice, nine bears out of ten will not fight, even when they have the chance, unless badly ‘cornered.’ As a rule, Ursus maritimus is purely carnivorous, preying mostly on seals, which bask on the ice with their heads always very close to, if not actually over, the water, a habit of which the bear takes advantage in approaching to within striking distance, by dropping into the water some way to leeward and swimming noiselessly along the ice edge. Even if the seal perceives the white head, the only visible portion of the swimming bear, it probably takes it for a drifting splinter of ice, and pays no more attention to it, until a blow from the heavy forepaw of the bear ends sleep and life together. I am told that the bear manages to secure seals lying at their holes on large flat expanses of ‘fast’ or bay ice, but imagine that such cases are rare, as anyone who has tried to stalk a seal basking at its hole knows how extremely difficult, if not impossible, it is to approach within rifle-shot of it. I once, however, killed a large blue seal at the fast ice edge, along whose back, from ‘stem to stern,’ were five parallel gashes, freshly cut through hide and blubber, marking the passage of Bruin’s paw as the seal had slipped beneath it into the water. The walrus is also attacked, of course on the ice only; for in the water both walrus and seal can sport around their enemy with impunity; indeed, if the professional hunters are to be believed, the former sometimes turns the tables, and under these circumstances it is often the bear which comes off second best in the encounter.
Although carnivorous, the polar also appears to be able to exist on a vegetable diet, like other bears. Nordenskjöld observed one browsing on grass on the northern coast of Siberia (he remarks that it was probably an old bear whose tusks were much worn), and it is on record (‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ ninth edition) that one was fed on bread only for some years. From its manner of life this bear is naturally almost amphibious, ‘taking’ the water as a matter of course, and, no doubt, frequently making long journeys by sea to regain its habitat, from which it has been carried on some drifting ice-lump. Captain Sabine found one ‘swimming powerfully, forty miles from the nearest shore, and with no ice in sight to afford it rest.’ No beast on the earth leads a harder life than the polar bear. Relying solely on the chase for its support, it roams continually amongst the ice. Even during the winter it does not retire from the battle of life, like its less hardy congeners, but wanders on through the storm and lasting darkness, for this species does not as a rule hibernate. It is alleged elsewhere that the female differs in this respect from the male, hibernating whilst he remains out, and the fact that all the bears (between sixty and seventy) killed in the winter months during the Austrian expedition under MM. Weyprecht and Payer were males, supports this statement; but, on the other hand, the only bears, two in number, which we killed in midwinter (on December 11 and 19, 1888), while wintering on Danes Island (north coast of Spitzbergen), were both females, accompanied on each occasion by a cub. I think it possible, therefore, that it is only the females which are about to cast their young in the spring that lie dormant during the winter. Why the rest are roaming in the darkness, or what they find to eat in that land of death, I cannot tell; for the seals do not lie on the ice in the dark time (at that season of the year we could not distinguish day from night), and, as has been said, the bear is no match for the seal in the water.
Even if the records of gigantic grizzlies—brutes weighing 2,000 lbs. and upwards—are trustworthy, the polar must yet be allowed to be, upon the average, the largest of his tribe. Most Londoners know the old beast in the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park (presented by Mr. Leigh Smith), which is a good type of a big male; and it is not too much to say that a large full-grown male bear of this species will measure from 8 ft. to 8 ft. 6 ins. from snout to tail, and weigh, probably, 1,500 lbs. The largest I have myself killed measured 8 ft. (Norwegian measurement) in length in the flesh, but I have seen a skin, now in the possession of Mrs. Dunsmuir, of Victoria, British Columbia, which measures 9 ft. 10 in. from the snout to root of tail. This must have belonged to an enormous bear.
The reasons why some of the expeditions after polar bear are unsuccessful have already been referred to. If the bears are sought for in the proper places, there is no reason why they may not be found and killed. Around Spitzbergen the most ‘likely’ places are in Stor Fjord, along the south-east and east coast (which indeed is but seldom accessible), and on the north coast east of Wiide Bay, and in the Hinlopen Straits; the number of bear to be found in these localities depending, of course, on the state of the ice. In the spring of 1889, the south-east coast was more or less open, and the bears were so numerous that the skipper of one of a fleet of seven walrus sloops, which arrived from Norway during the last week in May, told me that he had counted upwards of twenty bears on the ice at one time, near Half-moon Island. In the same spring, one sloop killed or captured fifty bears in the locality. When a bear is discovered on the ice by the look-out in the crow’s-nest, a ‘fangstbaad’ is lowered, and the hunt begins. It is often but a tame affair. If one of the hunters can manage to show himself between the main body of the ice or land and his quarry, the bear will generally take to the water, when he may be pursued and dispatched at leisure, for he is not a fast swimmer, although a powerful one. The carcase of a bear, unlike that of the walrus or seal, always floats. Among rough old pack or on ‘hummocky’ fast ice, however, the affair assumes a more sporting turn, as the bear must then be carefully stalked amid the ice lumps, either by boat or on foot, great attention being paid to the direction of the wind; for Ursus maritimus is one of the keenest-scented animals in creation, and if he once winds the hunter, the chase may be abandoned unless there is a chance of driving him into the water. The chief danger of such a hunt is from the ice, which is liable to be ‘working,’ or which, in the case of bay ice, may be rotten in places at the season of the year when most of the hunting is done. In many cases a man should not venture on a floe or big sheet of bay ice to chase or intercept a bear without a pair of Norwegian snow-shoes and a ‘hakkepik,’ and should be careful also in stepping on to the ice from a boat, as the edge is often undermined by the action of the water, and will break beneath his weight, although to the eye it looks as solid as the rest of the block.
There is another phase of hunting. When the darkness of an Arctic winter has settled down on the ice fields, wrapping some ice-bound crew in its pall, then one of the few excitements which is granted to these men, left out of the light and warmth of the world, is the silent coming of some old white bear.
Early one December morning, when wintering on Danes Island, we heard bears about a mile away among the loose ice near Amsterdam Island. The men judged that the cries were made by a cub which was being punished by its mother for not being able to keep up with her, and this proved to be the case; for before noon an old she-bear, and what seemed to be, from the tracks we afterwards saw, a three-parts-grown cub, were ‘nosing’ about some old seal carcases which, frozen into stony hardness, were lying a few yards distant from the snow wall surrounding the house. I crept up to them, but with an overcast sky and no moon there was not light enough for a fair aim, even at a few feet distance, so that the heavy balls from the Paradox gun struck her too far back to stop her at once, and with a low roar both she and the cub made off.
For some way along the shore there was an open space, a few feet in width, between the ice and rocks, caused by the rise and fall of the tides, and we saw the phosphorescent light flash up as the old bear struck the water in crossing it. The cub kept along the shore-line, and the skipper and myself followed his trail in deep snow until it ran on to the ice. As we retraced our steps we saw a spurt of flame apparently about a quarter of a mile away, near the Corpse Rocks; but the report of the rifle never reached us, being lost in the rending and groaning of the ice, which was grinding its way out of the Gat. This shot we found was fired by the mate, who was out on the ice after the old bear, with whom he had evidently come up, for we saw his rifle flash again and again, and had just decided to go to him, dragging our smallest boat with us, when the ice must have become jammed in the mouth of the Gat, for it began to close again. We were soon up with him, and did not stop to skin the bear, but dragged it head first over the ice to the house. The mate had found her lying down, and in twelve shots, two of which were miss-fires, had in the darkness put six bullets into her, the last of which had pierced her heart. She was in fair condition, although giving suck, but the stomach was quite empty, save for an old reindeer moccasin which one of the men had thrown away. One of my shots had almost filled the abdominal cavity with torn entrails and débris, but, with this terrible wound and a broken hind leg, the bear had fought her way for more than a quarter of a mile through loose ice, before lying down on the spot where the mate found her. A few hours later a south-west gale was cutting the crest off the heavy seas which were rolling where the trail we made in dragging the dead bear had been.
THE CORPSE ROCKS
In conclusion, I may mention a ruse we employed during the winter months to attract any bears which might be roaming in our vicinity. A small quantity of seal blubber was kept burning and simmering in an iron pot, placed without our snow wall and replenished every few hours. Towards the end of February, two days after the reappearance of the sun, a large old he-bear wandered about within sight, for the greater portion of two days, apparently sniffing up the fumes from our blubber pot, without daring to approach within four hundred yards of the house. At length we killed him, and after taking the skin decided to utilise the flesh, to the sparing of our blubber stock. With this idea, we filled the cavity of his chest with shavings and coal oil, and set the mass on fire. The odour of the dense black vapour which poured from the carcase may have attractions for bears, but was too pungent and powerful for human nostrils. The men were quickly of the opinion that ‘bear would not eat bear,’ and the following morning we were compelled to cut a hole in the ice, and commit the charred body of the last of our winter visitors to a watery grave.