Adventures in Alaska

by Samuel Hall Young

But about that foolish sentinel story: A beast that cannot tell an oomiak full of bipeds, or these same bipeds with guns or cameras from a fellow walrus at the distance of ten yards, doesn't plan and place a relay of watchmen. We learned from close and long observation that the walrus couldn't see us in the sunshine—their eyes were shut, or nearly so, and dim when open. Neither can they hear well. They have no external ear at all, only a tiny hole which requires close observation to discover. Even the near roar of a heavy rifle does not always alarm them, and hunters with smaller rifles have killed one after another of a whole herd until all were slain, without causing a stampede. Of course the repeated shots of two or three rifles close at hand will generally cause them to rush into the water, but even that does not always scare them. A heavy shot near by will bring all heads up, but if it is not repeated they will soon go to sleep again.

But what a thrilling time it was for me as I sat in the boat or on the ice-cake and watched the drama! It was far more comedy than tragedy. The great beasts, as heavy as elephants, were lying in bunches or rolling around like a lot of huge, fat hogs. Here a great bull with long tusks was lying on his back and scratching himself against an ice hummock, wriggling and squirming like a Newfoundland dog. Another was curled up in an impossible heap and scratching the top of his head with his hind flipper. Another was making his way through a bunch of sleeping comrades, rolling them around or scrambling over them and fighting those that resented his intrusion. Some were swimming about the landing place of low ice and trying to scramble onto the cake, and these would disturb a whole bunch of the lazy animals and there would be trouble.

And the noises they made were as various and interesting as their positions. One huge fellow, so close to me that I could have punched him with a bamboo fishing-rod, shook his head slowly from side to side with shut eyes and groaned with a dismal falling cadence, for all the world like a fat old man with the rheumatism: "O-o-o-h: D-e-a-r me, d-e-a-r me; this world's a wilderness of woe!"

Another was optimistic, and his was a sigh of infinite content. "A-a-h-h!" he said, "what a nice, soft, warm bed this ice-cake is! How fat and delicious those clams were! And I don't believe there is one of those horrible, malodorous little human bipeds with his deadly bang-stick within a hundred miles of us." And there we were within twenty feet of him, trying to locate his brain-pan!

Some grunted like pigs in sheer laziness. Others barked sharply as they prodded each other with their strong, sharp tusks: "Get off my stomach, you lazy son of a clam-digger! Wow! Wow!"

Two of them were sparring like gladiators, raising their heads high and roaring defiance; but it was all good nature, for in a minute they were lying asleep, one with his head across the other's neck.

All their movements, attitudes and voices had such a droll element; all were so irresistibly funny that I wanted to lie down on my back and roar with laughter.

But our hunters wanted big heads and tusks as trophies; our Eskimos desired some hides to make their oomiaks and to cover their houses; and we wanted tons of meat for the women and children of the Siberian villages. And so after a while the rifles roared and roared again and again, and the hunters moved close up, working their levers fast. The mad scramble of the walrus for the water was a most grotesque sight. They charged blindly ahead whichever way they happened to be lying, humping up their backs as they drew their hind flippers under them and stretching out again, just like the "woolly bear" caterpillars I used to tease when a boy. Those that escaped the volley splashed heavily into the water and dived deep, but presently they were all at the surface again, blowing and coughing, bunching in masses, crowding close to the feet of the moving-picture man, stretching their heads six feet out of the water, popping and rolling their ochre-colored eyes in frantic efforts to see. Then one would get a whiff of the dreaded man-scent and would go down with a mighty splash and snort, and the whole crowd would follow suit, soon to come up and repeat the performance five or six times before they could finally get it into their slow brains that this was a dangerous neighborhood.

We had four most interesting days among the walrus, and the hunters were sated with sport and trophies. My wishes were more modest. I had announced to Dr. John Timothy Stone, the Moderator of the Atlanta General Assembly, 1913, that my grand object in going on this hunt was to kill a walrus myself, get his tusks and have a couple of ivory gavels made out of them, that I might present them to the outgoing and incoming moderators of the next General Assembly, which was to meet in Chicago, 1914.

I got my walrus in this fashion: Captain K., Dr. Elting and I were in the oomiak with "Eskimo Prank." Dr. E. had got a fine head, and we were cruising about, when we spied a bunch of seven or eight big walrus on a hummocky berg near the edge of the ice-floe. The swell of the open ocean came in here with considerable force, and long, smooth topped billows heaved among the ice-floes, washing far up on the shelving bergs. We pushed our boat into a narrow passage and the swell took it and landed the bow on the ice right in the midst of the walrus. The captain and the doctor took the hazardous chance and leaped on the ice, placing the muzzles of their rifles almost against the heads of their selection. I was not quick enough to make the jump, but as the oomiak surged back with the receding wave I saw a walrus charging down the sloping ice diagonally from me. Both he and I were moving rapidly and in opposite directions and I could only take a hasty "wing" shot. It was the most difficult shot of all my experience. I was standing uncertainly in the plunging oomiak, swaying and tottering as the light craft shot down the receding wave away from the iceberg; while the frightened walrus was humping himself for all he was worth, trying frantically to get off the ice-floe into the ocean, his head bobbing up and down with his rapid motion. I was wobbling in one direction and he in another, and the space between us was widening fast. There was no time to be lost. Balancing most unsteadily, I swung up my rifle for a snap shot. It was a great moment. I had little hope of hitting the mark; but my walrus fell to the crack of the rifle, with his nose in the water. A delay of one-tenth of a second and I would have lost him. I had my gavels.