Walruses Killed off the East Coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, 12th September 1893. Water-Colour Sketch.
Thursday, September 12th. Henriksen awoke me this morning at 6 with the information that there were several walruses lying on a floe quite close to us. “By Jove!” Up I jumped and had my clothes on in a trice. It was a lovely morning—fine, still weather; the walruses’ guffaw sounded over to us along the clear ice surface. They were lying crowded together on a floe a little to landward from us, blue mountains glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons were sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and Henriksen, Juell, and I set off. There seemed to be a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to the north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals. From time to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and soon we were so near that we had to row very cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sunk it again, a few more strokes brought us nearer.
Body to body they lay close-packed on a small floe, old and young ones mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they were! Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself by moving one of her flappers backward and forward over her body; then she lay quiet again on her back or side. “Good gracious! what a lot of meat!” said Juell, who was cook. More and more cautiously we drew near. While I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a good grip of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat touched the floe he rose, and off flew the harpoon. But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide, and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now there was a pretty to do! Ten or twelve great weird faces glared upon us at once; the colossal creatures twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and came waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was undeniably an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to my shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The animal staggered, and then fell head foremost into the water. Now a ball into another head; this creature fell too, but was able to fling itself into the sea. And now the whole herd dashed in, and we as well as they were hidden in spray. It had all happened in a few seconds. But up they came again immediately round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier than the other, their young ones close beside them. They stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air trembled, threw themselves forward towards us, then rose up again, and new bellowings filled the air. Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, then bobbed up again. The water foamed and boiled for yards around—the ice-world that had been so still before seemed in a moment to have been transformed into a raging bedlam. Any moment we might expect to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat, or to be heaved up and capsized. Something of this kind was the very least that could happen after such a terrible commotion. But the hurly-burly went on and nothing came of it. I again picked out my victims. They went on bellowing and grunting like the others, but with blood streaming from their mouths and noses. Another ball, and one tumbled over and floated on the water; now a ball to the second, and it did the same. Henriksen was ready with the harpoons, and secured them both. One more was shot; but we had no more harpoons, and had to strike a seal-hook into it to hold it up. The hook slipped, however, and the animal sank before we could save it. While we were towing our booty to an ice-floe we were still, for part of the time at least, surrounded by walruses; but there was no use in shooting any more, for we had no means of carrying them off. The Fram presently came up and took our two on board, and we were soon going ahead along the coast. We saw many walruses in this part. We shot two others in the afternoon, and could have got many more if we had had time to spare. It was in this same neighborhood that Nordenskiöld also saw one or two small herds.
A warm corner among the walruses, off East Taimur
(By Otto Sinding)
We now continued our course, against a strong current, southward along the coast, past the mouth of the Chatanga. This eastern part of the Taimur Peninsula is a comparatively high, mountainous region, but with a lower level stretch between the mountains and the sea—apparently the same kind of low land we had seen along the coast almost the whole way. As the sea seemed to be tolerably open and free from ice, we made several attempts to shorten our course by leaving the coast and striking across for the mouth of the Olenek; but every time thick ice drove us back to our channel by the land.
On September 14th we were off the land lying between the Chatanga and the Anabara. This also was fairly high, mountainous country, with a low strip by the sea. “In this respect,” so I write in my diary, “this whole coast reminds one very much of Jæderen, in Norway. But the mountains here are not so well separated, and are considerably lower than those farther north. The sea is unpleasantly shallow; at one time during the night we had only 4 fathoms, and were obliged to put back some distance. We have ice outside, quite close; but yet there is a sufficient fairway to let us push on eastward.”
The following day we got into good, open water, but shallow—never more than 6 to 7 fathoms. We heard the roaring of waves to the east, so there must certainly be open water in that direction, which indeed we had expected. It was plain that the Lena, with its masses of warm water, was beginning to assert its influence. The sea here was browner, and showed signs of some mixture of muddy river-water. It was also much less salt.
“It would be foolish,” I write in my diary for this day (September 15th), “to go in to the Olenek, now that we are so late. Even if there were no danger from shoals, it would cost us too much time—probably a year. Besides, it is by no means sure that the Fram can get in there at all; it would be a very tiresome business if she went aground in these waters. No doubt we should be very much the better of a few more dogs, but to lose a year is too much; we shall rather head straight east for the New Siberian Islands, now that there is a good opportunity, and really bright prospects.