Walter Wellman Arctic Expedition of 1898 - 1899

Nook version of three articles originally published in 1900 by journalist Walter Wellman - leader of the Wellman Arctic Expedition of 1898 - 1899.

Lots of details on the preperations for, and hardships of arctic travel. Includes information on sledging, the use of Eskimo dogs for transportation and for food, Walrus attacks, and hunting of polar bears.

Read excerpt -

"The loss of the sun to-day was compensated for by a most extraordinary bear-hunt.

Dr. Nansen said his Siberian dogs would not attack bears: we wish Dr. Nansen could have been with us to-day to see our pack of twenty loose dogs pursue and attack the big white fellow who came shuffling leisurely over the hill. As usual, Ursus, our black bear-dog, was the first to approach the en¬emy. Bruin simply looked at him in a half-conscious, half-indifferent sort of way, as much as to say: You're the biggest fox I've seen in Franz Josef Land, but I am not afraid of you.' Then he proceeded in dignified fashion on his way, turning neither to the right nor the left, and hastening not his gait - a line of conduct altogether becoming to one of the lords of the isles. But when Ursus was reinforced by a half-dozen, and then a dozen and a half of his comrades, and the whole pack gathered round the bear, yelping and dancing and showing their teeth, but never quite getting hold of him, the bear concluded that, after all, he might have a serious job on his hands. But he made a fatal mistake in his tactics. If he had simply run away, as fast and as far as his great legs could have carried him, he would have been quite safe, for dogs alone cannot kill a full-grown bear, even if it is fifty to one. Instead, he showed fight at once, and tried to reach the tormentor nearest him. First a savage lunge this way, now the other, the frothing mouth wide open, dis¬playing tusks which needed only one chance to plant death in the vitals of the toughest dog that ever stood on four legs. But the pesky beasts were always just out of his reach. A dog can run faster than a bear, and move about more agilely, and that is the sum total of his superiority. At each onslaught the bear made a break in the circle about him, as the dogs had no wish to come in contact with those terrible incisors; but a fire in the rear always caused him to wheel round, and thus the circle closed up again. The war-dance continued till the poor bear was beside himself with rage and fatigue. Now the swirling, yelping mass had reached the base of the sharp incline that led up to the basalt mountain peak. Up its steep, icy surface the bear now attempted to escape his pursuers. With prodigious strength he crept rapidly upward, but the dogs were constantly at his side. They were in front of him, behind him, all around him; and though some of them lost their footing and slipped to the bottom of the glacier, others took their places, and the luckless brute found no peace.

"Suddenly the bear's huge paws slipped their grip, and down he came - a veritable avalanche of flesh and fur, that roared as it rolled. Fully 250 feet he slid, most of the way at an angle of forty degrees, and by the time he struck the nearly level plateau he had an impetus which carried him rolling, bounding, ricocheting among the rocks, plowing through the snow, fully a hundred feet farther. His course lay directly over the spot where we stood waiting for him, and we politely and rather hastily stood aside to give him right of way. Some of the dogs had been carried down with the rush, and the others were too eager to wait to run down, and so did a bit of tobogganing on their own account. Before the bear could get upon his feet the dogs were all about him once more. We were there, too, and a few Winchester 45.90s brought this most sensational bear-hunt to an end."

A rather pathetic bear-hunt was one we had a few days later. Mother and cub came ambling along the plateau

Excellent information on Arctic exploration, and a great read.