A Voyage to the Arctic in the Whaler Aurora

by David Moore Lindsay

May 22nd. Thursday. During the night, the ship had made considerable progress, so at noon we were off Hare Island. After tea, we were hooked on in a pool of water for several hours. I took my gun and went out for a stroll, killing a number of little auks (Alca Allé or Roach) and a Richardson's skua. These latter were called, by the sailors, boatswain birds, because of the long feathers in the tail, resembling a marlinspike.

As at this time we had the sun night and day, it made me exceedingly restless. About ten P. M. we were fast again, so, taking my gun, I shot some black guillemot (U. Grylle), these birds being very numerous. I returned to the ship about midnight, when it was blowing rather hard.

May 23rd. Friday. The wind had died down by morning and the day was beautiful. We were off Nugsuak Peninsula. There were many tremendous bergs about and the floe was heavy. In the dim distance we saw a ship and made our way towards her. To the east of us was the entrance to Hmanak Fiord, one of the largest on the west coast of Greenland. From where we were, all fiords looked alike, and it was impossible to tell islands from mainland. It resembled a sea of ice out of which protruded rocks and hills, which, excepting on the steep places, were covered with snow.

Black guillemot and little auks were everywhere in thousands, and it was pretty to see rows of the latter along the ice edge. They stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the water, and were very indifferent to our presence.

By night we had made little progress and the new ship was still far away. We had been about with the whalers enough by this time to recognize any of them a long way off by their rigging, smoke or funnel, so, long before we reached this new vessel, we recognized that she was a stranger, and she turned out to be the Cornwallis. When we left Dundee, she was outfitting for the Greenland fishing, that is, for the voyage we ourselves originally intended taking, after leaving Newfoundland.

The high price of whalebone, however, had induced her owners to send her to Davis Straits instead. By tea time we were hooked on within a quarter of a mile of her, and after that meal the Captain sent me on board to see whether there was any mail for our ship. Climbing on board, I was amazed to find my friend Armitage there, with a yellow beard and sea boots; I would not have recognized him. He was greatly surprised to see me because he believed that I had gone from Newfoundland to the Jan Mayen fishing, not knowing of our altered arrangements. The Cornwallis was an old barque, formerly in the South American trade. She had had engines put in, and been fortified for Arctic ice. After I sailed from Dundee, Armitage, in going around the docks, saw her. He went on board and, finding Captain Nicol, arranged to sail with him later in the year.

Sending back to the Aurora mail and papers, also some fresh mutton, which had been sent out to us, I remained on the Cornwallis and heard the news. I saw her peculiar and useless engines. Captain Nicol said they spoilt her for sailing and she steamed badly.

May 24th. Saturday. It was a beautiful Arctic day when I came on deck before breakfast. Ahead of us, the world was white, not a break to be seen anywhere, astern some open water. The Cornwallis was lying on our port side a few hundred yards away, so that about eleven I went on board, and, with Armitage, started off to look for something to shoot, among the hummocks, three or four miles north of where we lay. We spent hours tramping over the ice, but did not see a track, so we returned to our ships about six P. M. This hummock belt extended east and west and had been caused by the rafting of great floes. It was quite smooth from the ship to the hummocks and also on the other side of them. Half a mile beyond the ridge, however, there was a great berg which appeared to be aground.

When I returned on board the Aurora, the Captain told me to go below and have my tea and then to go with the mate back to where I had been, because he had seen a bear close to us all the time we were there. It certainly was curious that neither of us had seen him or his tracks. When we were about a mile away from the ships, I saw Armitage hurrying after us. I was anxious to wait for him, but the mate insisted on pushing on, as it would be a fearfully unlucky thing for a member of another crew to shoot a bear first seen by us. After a little, we reached a crack in the ice, about two feet wide, so we stepped across and hurried on. Armitage, coming up shortly after, was unable to cross as the crack was then eight or ten feet wide and extended indefinitely in each direction. So the situation righted itself, and my friend returned to the ship while the mate and I kept on to where the bear had been seen and there we found tracks in abundance, but no bear. After an hour's searching, we were returning to the ship when we saw her jib hauled up as a signal for us to go ahead again, the game having been spotted by the lookout in the crow's nest. Returning to the hummocks, we saw the bear strolling from behind the berg beyond. He was coming straight towards us, so we got down behind the rafted ice and awaited his approach. It was decided that I should have the first shot as the mate had killed so many. I allowed the bear to get about a hundred and fifty yards away before firing, and then put a bullet into him. I don't know where it hit, but he came down, to be up again at once and to keep on coming. The mate fired and down he went again, and we kept it up until the bear was hit many times. Sometimes he fell, sometimes he bit at the place, and by the time he reached the ridge he was very lame and badly shot up. He had gone some distance to the west of us, so I stood up on a slab of ice and finished him, as we thought, by putting a bullet in his shoulder and dropping him in his tracks. We hurried up our side of the ridge until we arrived at where he was. Then, climbing over, I was surprised to find him sitting up. This time my bullet finished him. Our shooting was nothing to be proud of, and went to show how careful one should be with bears, because if not hit right, they take a lot of lead. This was about the only one of those killed that took more than one or, at the most, two shots.