Chief among the smaller animals of the North are the polar hares, which are found occasionally on southern slopes, even as far north as the northern shores of Grant Land. Like the penguins of the antarctic regions, they have not yet learned to fear man, and it is possible to get almost close enough to pick them up. On my last expedition members of the party discovered hundreds of these little animals around Lake Hazen, and succeeded in getting near enough to hit them over the head with their rifles instead of shooting. A stray hare or two picked up on sledge-trips make a very acceptable change in the monotonous diet of pemmican.
SECURING BIRDS AT THE BIRD CLIFFS
HARE HUNTING AT 83° N. LAT.
While it can scarcely be said that the sea-birds of the North are hunted, still thousands upon thousands of little auks and guillemots are caught every year by the Eskimos with their nets, and laid by for the long winter. At Red Cliff House, in 1891–93, millions of these birds were to be seen in the summer months, and boat-trips were made to the loomeries of Hakluyt, Northumberland, and Herbert Islands for a supply of them. In the clefts of the perpendicular cliffs of these islands the Brunnich’s guillemots breed by the thousands. Our method of capturing them was to run the boat up to the cliffs after as many as could be kept track of had been shot, and while one man collected the dead birds, another kept the boat off the rocks with his boat-hook. Not over thirty per cent. of the birds killed would fall into the water, the majority of them catching on the cliffs, where it was impossible to get at them. Millions of guillemots, kittiwakes, and little auks, as well as numerous looms, burgomasters, and falcons, are to be found along the cliffs between Cape York and Conical Rock. With vast throngs of these birds perched on every projecting rock or ledge, these cliffs appear to be fairly alive. Eider-ducks are on Duck Islands of Melville Bay and McGary Island in considerable quantities. Two stray ones were killed near Cape Belknap in 1907.
Brant also are found on the northern coast of Grant Land; after my return from “farthest north” in 1906 we came across groups of ten or eleven, and near Cape Thomas Hubbard I discovered a flock of as many as one hundred of these birds.
The only available fish in the north are found in the landlocked lakes of that region. They will not touch bait, and the Eskimo method of catching them with a spear had to be adopted by us. The native spears are made by setting a nail or any sharp bit of steel in the end of a shaft. Two pieces of deer antler are bound with fine cord to each side of the shaft so that they point downward, and sharp nails are then set in these, pointing inward. A hole is cut in the ice, and a small fish carved from ivory, in which art the Eskimos are surprisingly expert, is dropped into the water. A fish, rising to examine the decoy, is immediately thrust with the spear, which, pressing down on its back, causes the portions of antler to spread, and the nails to sink into its flesh and makes escape almost impossible.
My confidence in the ability of the country to furnish the fresh-meat supply of my expeditions has always been justified by results. Even in 1905–06, when, with the long polar night upon us, I had to face the serious proposition of feeding my dogs and most of my Eskimos entirely upon the country because the whale meat purchased in Labrador proved to be bad and had to be thrown away, I found it possible to subsist them upon the country’s resources. It is quite true, though, that such a thing would have been absolutely impossible had it not been for my thorough knowledge of this region. Nor should I have found an abundance of game along the most northerly lands,—the northern coasts of Greenland and Grant Land,—where Nares and Greely’s parties found practically none, and were reduced to most serious straits, had it not been for my previous years of training and experience in how and where to look for polar game.