A Voyage to the Arctic in the Whaler Aurora

by David Moore Lindsay

April 7th. I saw a most interesting thing today. It was an old dog hood; to call it Cystophora Cristata might give the describer some relief; but it would convey no idea of this angry-looking creature as he reared up and gazed at us. How we all resisted firing until he had exhibited himself, I don't know; but when he was looking perfectly terrible and fifty yards away, a dozen copper-nosed bullets found their billets about his head and neck. He was 7 1/2 feet long and a tremendous size around the shoulders. The bag on his head, when fully distended, must have stood eight or nine inches, and extended from the muzzle to four inches behind the eyes. The hood is only found on the male. It is considered ornamental by the females of the same species, but horrible looking by all other animals, I am sure. The beast added about 400 pounds to our little cargo, but the animal, skin and all, certainly weighed seven or eight hundred. During the day we killed quite a number of hoods, but the first was the largest. We did not make much of a run, but dodged about and picked things up. A young hood is rather blue-looking on the back and white underneath.

The engine slowed down at night, as usual.

April 8th. This was one of the most lovely days, with bright sunshine, and there was dazzling ice in every direction. To the east of us we saw a beautiful barque under canvas; she was playing our game, dodging about and picking up seals. As she was not a steamer, and had a small crew, she was consequently inexpensive to work; there was no reason why she should not pay her owners well, especially if she got amongst the hoods, five or six of which would yield a ton of oil. We kept out to her, and finding she was the Maud of Dundee, I was sent on board to hear the news. I was hospitably entertained by the captain, who gave me some old Dundee papers, but those I brought from the Aurora were much more recent. When I returned, I saw a funny thing happen. We had a Newfoundland cook, Jack; he had a triangular face with the base up; a tuft of hair grew from the apex and was the only decoration. With his long shaved upper lip, he had an amusing look and he was a character.

The ship was bearing down towards ice upon which there was a young hood. It had been injured and made no effort to escape. Thinking it dead, no one fired and we were almost on to it when Jack, looking over the side, saw it. He had not killed a seal that season, so, seizing a gaff, he leaped on to the pan and we all cheered. As Jack lit on the ice, it broke in two. The seal slid gracefully off its half, but Jack's half, almost submerged, swung around under the ship's quarter, where the propeller was threshing away. Jack paused for a moment between Scylla and Charybdis, and then giving a wild leap, he disappeared in the sea as far from the propeller as he could jump. It was most amusing to see this big man give his wild leap; he was fished out by the punt astern. A small matter, like a man being half drowned, always amused these simple people so much.

I have said that the Newfoundlanders were not over-fed on this trip. We had, for cabin use, numerous quarters of Dundee beef lashed in our tops. They kept splendidly up there. One morning the steward reported a quarter of our Dundee beef stolen. One of the Newfoundland cooks was sent for at once and I heard the conversation between the angry Captain and the astonished cook. I heard the cook report every morning how he was on the track of a thief: "Begorra, sor, I have my eye on him;" or, "Begorra, sor, I could put my hand on the man," and so on until we got back without the thief having been turned over; I heard afterwards that the cook certainly could have at any moment put his hand on the man who took the beef.

April 9th. This was one of the most interesting days I spent. At breakfast, I heard the captain and the mate discussing blinks, that is, reflections. For instance, an ice blink at sea would mean a sort of whitish reflection in the sky over an area of ice, or a water blink would be a dark reflection in the sky over a dark area. We were surrounded by ice and were approaching a dark blink. Was it water or seals? Before breakfast was over, the report came from the crow's-nest that the seals were ahead. I went aloft and saw an extraordinary sight. The ice ahead of us appeared to be positively black with seals. They covered acres and acres. We steamed right up to them and then about twenty men, with rifles, went on to the ice and a lot of others followed to sculp and haul the sculps to the ship. This ice was not solid but made up of thousands of pans all detached. They were generally touching in places, but two or three sprawls would bring any individual seal to some sort of a hole through which it could escape; therefore, it had to be killed instantly or it would disappear. The shooting began at once, the men kneeling down and opening up at the nearest animals. Just as fast as they could consume ammunition, they fired at seals close at hand, and, as these disappeared, at those farther away. There was far too much shooting for much result. Presently they began to get closer. A would kneel down and fire as fast as possible so as to use as much ammunition as he could before B would pass him. B would then rush past and begin shooting, and so on. Now, with regard to this rushing about,—we were travelling on pans of ice of all sizes, some a few feet square, some as large as a table, some twenty times that size, but we certainly had to watch where we were going. When the men scattered, they shot better, but it was much more dangerous, as the express bullets were singing about everywhere. I had two men who took me off to one side and who gave me the best shooting I ever enjoyed. The seals were inclined to bask in the sun and enjoy themselves; so, if we went about it quietly, we could easily stalk a pan and advance to within fifty or seventy-five yards; then, if we shot carefully and only hit heads, we would not disturb the others. Should we wound one, it would not only go down itself but would frighten the others on the same pan. I shot off a number of entire pans by quietly getting close and then picking them off.

The seal, properly hit, just drops its head, while the others hold theirs up for you. This was warm work and the barrel of the rifle became so hot that I had constantly to put it on the snow to cool off. I watched some of the Newfoundland men shooting when we started and saw several of them miss every shot. All they did was to endanger their fellow men and wound an occasional seal; of course there were some crack shots among them, but it would have paid well to have tested the ability of all before serving out rifles to them. As there was not a cloud in the sky, we were greatly sunburnt and several had a touch of snow-blindness in spite of wearing colored glasses. We probably picked up three or four hundred seals, and had there been about eight or ten men who understood the use of firearms, they would have killed a thousand easily.

The sealing cap worn by the Dundee men was very suitable. The peak was covered with lamb's wool dyed black, so when turned down it absorbed a great deal of the glare. Wool had to be wound around the metal work of the colored glasses we wore on account of the cold.

April 10th. Nothing makes one rest like a hard day's work in the open air. My shoulder was black and blue with firing and my ears rang with the noise while my eyes smarted and my face burned, but I slept like a log until seven bells.

The ship had not moved all night. We were off the coast of Labrador, but out of sight of land. There was a great deal of ice everywhere and by dawn we were steaming north as fast as possible in the effort to overtake our game. By noon the seals were in sight and we went through the same performance as the day before. I did not attempt it with the main body, but with two good men went off in a slightly different direction. The express was certainly a good rifle, and its trajectory very flat, when we consider the powder. I examined a great many wounds that day and in every case found the bullet had expanded well if it had hit anything hard. These seals were nearly all bedlamers and we did not kill any hoods either of these days, although we had picked up quite a number coming up the coast. This was a shorter day, and we did not kill so many. It was quite late when the ship took the last of her men on board, for they had become scattered. One man had fallen in several times and was very much exhausted. However, I was able to make him swallow some rum and he soon revived. A sailor is very feeble and dissolution near at hand when a little rum cannot be coaxed down with a spoon or other suitable instrument—even then I would not advise leaving the bottle close to him while looking for the spoon, lest, during his unconscious struggles, he should spill it.