Adventures in Alaska

by Samuel Hall Young

Illustrating my own roving habits, while a pioneer missionary in Alaska, I have sometimes said, using a common simile, that I "had no more home than a jack-rabbit." I am changing this now to a stronger expression; "no more home than a walrus." He is the most constantly on the move of all the vagabonds. Even when sleeping he is moving, for the only home the poor fellow has is the ice-cakes which form in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea, entirely filling the former and in the winter crowding down the latter to about fifty-eight degrees, north latitude. The walrus herds, for the greater part of the year, keep on the borders of this great field of ice. In the summer when the Bering Sea ice melts and also that of the southern part of the Arctic Ocean, the walrus keeps on the flat ice-cakes which float over the great clam beds of these shallow seas. As the ice forms in the fall and the ice-floes extend southward he sets out on a long swim ahead of the fast freezing ice, resting occasionally on the Siberian shore, the Diomedes, St. Lawrence, St. Matthews and other islands. When the ice-field has extended to its southern limit he resumes his ice-house-boat habit and returns north in the spring.

So little is known of the life history of the walrus that I am unable to speak with confidence, but the young are evidently brought forth very early in the spring, April or May, and float with their mothers (the females and young herding together), up into the Arctic Ocean as far as the shoals off Wrangle Island, one hundred and fifty miles north of the Siberian Coast. There the little ones are guarded by the cows, which during the summer months are the only really dangerous walrus ever met with. Were the walrus the ferocious and combatant animal he is sometimes depicted, it would be a risky thing indeed to hunt him in skin boats or any other small craft. Imagine three or four tons of muscular fierceness, armed with strong, sharp, spearlike tusks, charging at you. The front part of his head is a solid mass of tough bone more than a foot thick. He could strike his tusks through your boat and sink it in an instant, or hook them over the edge and upset you, spearing you one by one in the water.

But the huge pachyderm is the most timid and good-natured of animals. It is only when the female fears for the safety of her young that she shows anything like ferocity. In 1911 Captain Kleinschmidt was taking moving pictures of the walrus herds. He had two catamarans, made by lashing two kyaks together with firm cross pieces. In the foremost craft two Eskimo hunters with their spears were paddling ahead, to slip up on the herds and harpoon them at the proper time, while the moving-picture man was in the other craft to take pictures of the herds and of the whole performance.

A herd of cows and their young had been frightened from an ice-cake into the water. Suddenly one of these cows thrust her tusks forward, the sign of a charge: "Look out!" cried K. to the Eskimo as the cow dived. They made frantic efforts to paddle their kyaks to the nearest berg, but the cow came up under the craft and slashed with her tusks one of the kyaks, ripping the bottom and filling it with water. The other kyak of the catamaran tilted dangerously, the Eskimo in the sinking one throwing himself upon it, and the two frightened natives made their escape to the ice-cake. Coming to the surface again the cow sighted Captain K.'s catamaran, thrust her tusks forward again and dived; he saw her body deep in the water coming toward him and thought his time had come; but luckily when she struck the canoe had veered and received only a glancing blow. She came to the surface within a yard of the picture man, who had his rifle ready and thrust it against her brain and pulled the trigger, which ended that affair. But it was a perilous adventure, and one is liable to meet with such if he is so rash as to venture among the herds of the cows with their young.

During this hunt of ours, although we saw great herds aggregating hundreds of walrus, we did not see a cow or calf among them; only the big bulls herded together and occasionally a solitary one.

After passing Cape Prince of Wales into the Arctic Ocean we had a week of battling with winds and tide before we got into the ice-pack well up towards Wrangell and Herald Islands. We had another week of pounding ice, poking through the narrow "leads," constantly turning and running the other way in our effort to get to the shores where the walrus herds would feed.

We had fun with the polar bears, but, with one exception, saw no walrus for nearly two weeks of this strenuous fight. This one exception was a big old bull that we sighted reposing in solitary dignity on an ice-cake in the midst of this vast white solitude.

Captain K. took Dr. Elting with him in the kyaks which we manufactured into a catamaran, and while the Abler lay "off and on" the two hunters whom we watched through our field-glasses made their sinuous way behind ice hummocks through the narrow "leads" and around the jamming cakes of the ice-field. We saw them at last seemingly right upon the walrus, on the same cake. The big fellow was fast asleep in the uneasy fashion that all walrus and seal have of sleeping; that is, every two or three minutes they will raise their heads and move them back and forth, during which time the hunters must keep perfectly still and if possible behind the ice-cakes. The walrus, however, has not the keen sight of the seal, and is more easily approached.

Our hunters moored their skin boat on the ice-cake close to the walrus, crept up behind a hummock right upon him, and Dr. Elting put his bullet into the brain of the beast, which is situated in his neck, and not in what appears to be his head. It was an easy and not very exciting triumph. What possessed this old bull to lie there alone scores of miles from his companions, I do not know. He may have been there two or three weeks on that one ice-cake, as the Eskimos tell us this is sometimes their habit.