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Nansen's Adventures with Polar Bears
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Bear on the horizon
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Nansen and Johansen were always on the look out for game to supplement their rations. They traverse the arctic wastes with their trusty weapons and despatch their prey with a late-Victorian gusto. Here are two extracts.....
'There's a bear standing just outside the door.' He snatched his gun down from where it hung, under the roof, and again put his head into the passage, but drew it quickly back, saying, 'He is standing close by, and must be thinking about coming in.' He managed to draw aside a corner of the door-skin, just enough to give him elbow room to shoot, but it was not altogether easv. The passage was narrow enough before, hand now, in addition, it was full of all the back-bones and scraps of meat. I saw him once lift the gun to his shoulder, as he lay crouched together, but take it down again; he had forgotten to cock it, and the bear had moved a little away, so that he only saw its muzzle and paws. But now it began scraping down in the passage, as if it wanted to come in, and Johansen thought he must fire, even if he could not see. He put out his gun, pointing the barrel at the upper edge of the opening; he thought the shot must go right into the bear's breast, and so he fired. I heard a dull grow], and the crunching of the snow under heavy footsteps, which went up towards the talus. Johansen loaded again, and put his head out at the opening. He said he saw it going up there, and that it didn't seem up to much, and forthwith he rushed after it. I, meanwhile, was lying head foremost in the bag hunting for a sock which I could not find. At last, after a long search, I found it - on the floor, of course. Then I, too, was ready; and well equipped with gun, cartridges, knife, and file (to sharpen the seal-knife), I followed. I had my wind trousers on. too; they had been hanging unused all through the winter's cold, for want of thread to mend them with. but now when the temperature was only - 2° C. (28.4° F.), they of course had to come out. I followed the tracks; they went westwards and northwards along the shore. After a little while I at last met Johansen, who said that the bear lay farther on; he had at last got up to it, and finished it with a shot in the back. While he returned to fetch the sledges, I went on to begin skining. It was not to be done quite so quickly, however. As I approached the place where I thought it must be lying, I caught sight of the ' dead bear' far ahead, trotting pretty briskly along the shore. Now and then it stopped to look round at me. I ran out on to the ice, to get outside it, if possible, and drive it back, so that we should not have so far to drag it. When I had kept on at this for some time, and was about on a level with it, it began clambering up the glacier, and under some ragged rock. I had not reckoned on a 'dead bear' being able to do this, and the only thing was to stop it as soon as possible; but just as I got within range, it disappeared over the crest. Soon I saw it again, a good deal higher up and far out of range. It was craning its neck to see if I were following. I went up some way after it, but, as it went on along the mountain more quickly than I could follow it in the deep snow, under which, moreover, there were crevices into which I kept falling up to my waist. I preferred to clamber down on to the fjord-ice again.
In a little while the bear emerged from beneath a perpendicular cliff with a precipitous bit of talus beneath it. Here it began to crawl carefully along at the very top of the talus. I was now afraid of its lying down in a place like this where we could not get at it, and even though the range was long I felt I must fire and see if I could not make it fall over. It did not look as if It had too firm a footing up there. It was blowing like anything here under the cliff, and I saw that the bear had to lie flat down and hold on with its claws when the worst gusts came, and then, too, it had only three paws to hold on with: the right fore-leg had been broken. I went up to a big stone at the lower edge of the talus, took good aim and fired. I saw the bullet strike the snow just beneath it, but whether it was hit or not, it started up and tried to jump over a drift, but slipped, and rolled over. It tried several times to stop itself, but went on, until at last it found its feet, and began to crawl slowly up again. Meanwhile I had loaded again, and the range was now shorter. I fired once more. It stood still a moment, then slipped farther and farther down the drift, at first slowly then quicker and quicker, rolling over and over. I thought it was coming straight towards me, but comforted myself with the thought that the stone I was standing on was a good solid one. I squatted down and quickly put a fresh cartridge into my gun. The bear had now arrived at the talus below the drift: it came tearing down, together with stones and lumps of snow, in a series of leaps, each longer than the last. It was a strange sight, this great white body flying through the air. and turning somersault after somersault, as if it been a piece of wood. At last it took one tremendous leap, and landed against an enormous stone. There was a regular crash, and there it lay close beside me: a few spasms passed through it, and all was over. It was an uncommonly large he-bear, with a beautiful thick fur, which one might well wish to have at home: but the best thing of all was that it was very fat. It was so windy the gusts were apt to blow you over, if you were not prepared for them ; but with the air so mild as it was, wind did not matter much; it would not have been such bad work to skin it, had it not been that it was lying in a hollow, and was so big that one man could not stir it. After a time, however, Johansen came and at last we had got it dismembered, and had it down to the ice, and piled it on the sledge. We had not gone far, however, before we found that it would be too heavy for us to draw all at once against this wind, and for such a distance. We laid half of it in a heap on the ice, and spread the skin over, intending to fetch it in a day or two: and even then we had difficulty enough in fighting on against the wind, in the dark, so that it was late at night before we got home. But it was long since we had so much enjoyed our homecoming, and being able to lie down in our bag, and sup of fresh meat and hot soup."
We lived on that bear for six weeks.
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wounded bear
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This extract reads more like something out of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
………we heard an animal rustling about outside, and gnawing at something. We did not take much notice of it, thinking it was a fox, busy as usual with some meat up on the roof; and if it did seem to be making rather more noise than we had of late been accustomed to hear from foxes, yet it was scarcely noise enough to come from a bear. We did not take into consideration that the snow was not so cold and crackling now as it had been earlier in the winter.
When Johansen went out to read the thermometer, he saw that it was a bear that had been there. It had gone round the hut, but had evidently not liked all the bears carcases, and had not ventured past them up to the walrus blubber up on the roof. At the opening of the passage and the chimney it had sniffed hard, doubtless enjoying the delicious scent of burnt blubber and live human flesh. Then it had dragged a walrus-hide, that was lying outside, a little way off, and scraped the blubber off it. It had come from the ice obliquely up the hill following the scent, had then followed out footsteps from the hut to the place where we get salt water, and had thence gone further out over the ice until it had got scent of the walrus-carcases out there, and was going towards them when Johansen caught sight of it. There it set work to gnaw. As my gun was not fit to use at the moment, I took Johansen's and went alone. The bear was so busy gnawing and tearing pieces off the carcase that I could get close up to it from behind without troubling about cover. Wishing to try how near I could get, I went on, and it was not until I was so near that I could almost touch it with the muzzle of my gun that it heard my steps, so busy had it been. It started round, gazed defiantly and astonished at me, and I saluted it with a charge right in its face. It threw up its head, sneezed, and blew blood out over the snow, as it turned around again and galloped away. I was going to load again, but the cartridge jammed, and it was only by using my knife that I got it out. While I was doing this, the bear had bethought himself, stopped, turned towards me, and snorted angrily, as he made up his mind to set upon me. He then went up on to a piece of ice close by, placed himself in an attitude of defence, and stretched out his neck towards me, while the blood poured from his mouth and nostrils. The ball had gone right through his head, but without touching the brain. At last I had put another cartridge in, but had to give him five shots before I finally killed him. At each shot he fell, but got up again. I was not accustomed to the sights on Johansen's gun, and shot rather too high with it. At last I grew angrv, rushed up to him, and finished him off."
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