David goes to Greenland

by David Binney Putnam

The little bear didn’t know what had happened until they began pulling him in. Then he commenced growling and snarling and barking. When Carl got him alongside the dory he chewed at the rope and scratched and tore at the boat and at Carl and tried to climb aboard. He certainly was full of fight. One clean swipe from his claw would be enough to rip an arm off, I suppose. Carl wore heavy gloves and leather wristlets.

When the bear tried to climb in Carl would bat him in the face with his hand or pry his paws off the gunwale. He bit at Carl and was real snooty. It was a great party. After a while, when he had towed the dory about a bit, Carl managed to get a rope sling down around his body behind his shoulders, and with this he was hoisted aboard with a tackle.

Coming up and on deck he bit everything [[164]]he could get at and tried to tear the sails he reached, and generally raised Ned. We hoisted him up in the air and with a smaller rope sort of led and dragged him forward to the cage which was on the port side of the ship by the bow. We had to lift him over the jumbo and lower him on the other side into the entrance of his cage.

Carl and One of the Polar Bear Cubs He Roped.

On the way he knocked down the galley stove pipe. Then we put a line around one of his front paws and then put the line under the bottom of the cage and pulled down on it for all we were worth. We got his head down in that way and then we all had to push his hind quarters. After about half an hour we had him in the cage.

Then Carl went out and roped the other cub, who had swam away about a quarter of a mile. This one we got over on top of the cage all right but then when Will was standing up leaning on the jumbo boom the bear jumped right up at him and Will just got away in time. [[165]]The bear landed just where he had been. It was very close. We got him in the cage the same as the other one.

Art Young and the Bear He Killed with Bow and Arrow.

We gave them a duck and to our surprise they ate it all up in a minute. It is very unusual for an animal to eat so soon after he is in captivity. They must have been pretty hungry on that berg. We thought we would see how they liked the dog food we had on board, in cans. It’s called Ken-l-Rations and is pretty good stuff even for men. The Eskimos North liked it a lot. Well, our bears just loved it. They actually will bite chunks of it off a big spoon which Carl holds through the side of the cage. Dad has asked him to look after “Cap’n Bob” and “Cowboy.”