|
Sporting in Spitzbergen
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1861Page 1
Click on each engraving to greatly enlarge it
Northern Europe has of late years been a favorite field for British tourists.The result has been a number of capital books, the best of which are Lord Dufferin's "Letters from High Latitudes," of which we have before spoken in this Magazine, and Mr. Lamont's recent "Seasons with the Sea-Horses." "
"JAMES LAMONT, Esq., F.G.S.," is a man worth knowing. From a hint dropped here and there, we gather that he is a Scotchman of wealth and position, who has traveled over a considerable part of our globe. Thus, apropos of an old battered opera-glass with which he was watching the movements of a white bear in Spitzbergen, he mentions some of the sights which that optical instrument has seen in its day. Besides its normal employment in the opera-houses of London, Paris, Florence, Naples, and New York, it had surveyed Epsom races, Champ de Mars reviews, Seville bullfights, and Niagara rainbows. It had stalked red deer in Scottish Highlands, scaly crocodiles on Nile sand-banks, and thick-skinned hippopotami in reedy African rivers. It had read Egyptian inscriptions at Thebes and Karnak; had peered from the Allied trenches at the frowning batteries before Sebastopol. It bad seen cane-fields from the mountains of Trinidad and Martinique, overlooked Naples from Vesuvius, Cairo from the pyramids, and Jerusalem from Calvary. Though a Fellow of the Geological Society, Mr. Lamont modestly disavows all scientific claims; yet he is sufficiently versed in natural sciences to render his observations and speculations of considerable value. But the main charm of his book is its graphic descriptions of the chase of the seal, the walrus, the white bear, and the reindeer in Spitzbergen.
A yacht cruise, made in 1858, to the coast of Norway, induced him to plan a voyage still further north. His own trim yacht, the Ginevra, was not adapted to navigation among the ice; so, having secured the co-operation of his friend, Lord David Kennedy, a sportsman of renown on the plains of India, he commissioned a Norwegian friend to hire a vessel and engage a crew for a cruise against the wild game of the Arctic Europe. The preparations included casks, to stow away the blubber, for it was determined that the oil and skins should pay a part of the cost of the cruise. Mr. Lamont, though a keen sportsman, is no vulgar slaughterer. He destroys no animal for the mere pleasure, of killing it; to give him pleasure the death must somehow be of advantage. More than once he notes that he refrained from shooting seals, walruses, and reindeer, simply because it would have been impossible to recover their, carcasses.
The projected trip, and the consequent book, came near failure. When Mr. Lamont was almost ready to start, he was solicited to become a candidate for member of Parliament, but was defeated by a small majority. This, as he says, was "unfortunate for the walruses, though perhaps fortunate for my constituents." Certainly it was fortunate for the readers of his book. Taking this political defeat quite coolly, Mr. Lamont and his friend urged on their preparations, and early in June, 1859, his yacht, having skirted the coast of Scotland, reached the Orkney Islands. At Lerwick, immortalized by Scott in "The Pirate," they attempted to procure some fresh supplies. Bnt in this sea-port town of 3000 inhabitants they could not find a joint of meat, a pound of butter, or a single fresh fish. "This time of year," said a shopkeeper, "is what we call the starvation months."
Leaving the Orkneys, they steered in the teeth of contrary winds for the coast of Norway, and on the 23d of June reached Hammerfest, "the most northerly town in the world." It lies in latitude 70° 42', as far north from Quebec as Quebec is from New Orleans. Yet the sea never freezes here. The uttermost skirt of the Gulf Stream touches this northern extremity of Europe. A mere fragment of the mass of heated water poured from the caldron of the Gulf of Mexico, having made a journey of 8000 miles, retains sufficient heat to give to Hammerfest a winter temperature as high as that of Boston, 2000 miles to the south. Northern Europe, indeed, owes its habitability to our Gulf Stream. Were it not for this, Great Britain would have the climate of Labrador, which lies in the same latitude.
Hammerfest, according to Mr. Lamont, is "the most unsavory place in the universe." If acres upon acres of unsalted fish drying upon the rocks, and huge boileries of walrus blubber, coal-fish, and sharks-liver oil are sufficient to create a stench equal to those of Cologne or Tanis, possibly this northern town may lay claim to a mal-odorous pre-eminence. Where travelers disagree, we shall not venture to decide. But we may agree with Mr. Lamont that, if the consumptive consumers of "pure cod-liver oil" could see how it is prepared at Hammerfest, its use would be seriously diminished.
At Hammerfest Mr. Lamont and Lord David found the vessel which they had engaged almost ready. The sloop Anna Louisa was an ugly tub of 30 tons burden, high at bow and stern, round in bottom, looking as though she was designed to make as much leeway as possible, and to upset at the first opportunity. The cabin was five feet high, furnished with two bunks, five and a half feet long. Deducting the space occupied by bunks and lockers, the available, area of the cabin was just four feet square. She had, moreover, been the previous summer on a Spitzbergen trip, and was thoroughly impregnated with the odors of putrid walrus-oil and stale bilge-water. Her crew consisted of a "skyppar," or captain, and eleven men of various degrees.
Seals, walruses, bears, and reindeer were the game of which our sportsmen were in search. The great Spitzbergen seal - the Phoca barbata of naturalists - is an unwieldy creature some nine or ten feet long and six or seven in circumference, weighing about six hundred pounds, of which half is made up of skin and fat. The blubber yields about half its weight of fine oil. When in the water they are destitute of fear, and will come boldly up to a boat, first on one side and then on the other, as if they wished to make acquaintance with the strange object. It is, however, almost useless to shoot them in the water, as they sink at once. The most approved plan is not to fire unless the boat's head is directed toward the seal, and within thirty yards from it. Then if the men pull with a will, they may be in time to thrust a harpoon into him, and so save the body; but more likely they will be only in time to see him sinking, tail downward, just beyond reach. Probably two out of three seals shot in the water are lost. Upon the ice, where he retires to rest and sleep, the seal is a very different creature. Even when asleep he is on the look-out for his great enemy the white bear, lifting up his round bullet head every three or four minutes to take a survey of his situation. He always lies close to the edge of the ice, and at the slightest alarm flings himself into the water. He will never allow a boat to approach him nearer than fifty or sixty yards; so that he can only be taken by shooting him. He must be shot dead at once, for if wounded, no matter how severely, he is in the water at once, and farewell to his hide and the ten dollars' worth of oil packed away under it. To kill a seal from a boat at this distance requires good marksmanship, for the brain is the only spot in which a wound is mortal instantly, and this is not bigger than an orange. The moment the shot is fired the men row with all their might to the ice; if they find the seal there, a pick is driven into his head to make sure that he is dead; the skin and blubber is stripped off in a single sheet, and the acrcass is thrown into the sea.
The chase of the walrus is far more exciting than that of the seal. They are either shot and harpooned in the water, or upon the ice, where they retire sometimes in vast herds for sleep. One morning our hunters were aroused by the cry "Hvalruss paa Ysen - Walruses on the ice!" A sight well worth seeing met their eyes. Four large flat icebergs were so densely packed with the huge creatures that they looked like solid islands of walruses. They lay with thier heads upon each other's bodies like fat swine in a farm-yard. There were eighty or a hundred of them on the ice, and many more were grunting and spouting around trying vainly to climb up among their friends. There were plenty of empty ice-bergs around, but the walruses seem to prefer lying packed together as closely as possible. In this case the animals had not had time to settle into a comfortable snooze; the individuals in the water gave the alarm to their friends; and our hunters only succeeded in killing four of the herd.
Toward the close of August the walruses take to the land in some secluded spot, where they remain for weeks in a semi-torpid state, without moving or feeding. Thousands are sometimes congregated in a mass. The vessels have by this time nearly all departed, and the chances are that the trysting-place of the animals will not be discovered in the few days which remain of the season. But such chances are what every Spitzbergen hunter prays for by day and dreams of by night. Let him discover such a placer and the work of a few hours will be worth a fortune. Such a chance occurred in 1852 to a couple of small sloops. Approaching one of the Thousand Islands, they discovered a herd of four thousand walruses fast asleep. They lay in a little sandy bay shut in by rocks on each side, leaving onlv a narrow opening to the sea. The walrus is almost helpless on land, though fierce and active in the water. Sixteen men armed with lances attacked this herd. Those in front were killed until their carcasses formed a wall, over which those in the rear could not pass. The crews worked with a will; every good lance-thrust was worth a score of dollars. They thrust and stabbed the defenseless beasts till their spears were dulled, and they themselves were utterly exhausted. In a few hours these sixteen men had killed nine hundred walruses. Their vessels would hold only a small part of their prey. They loaded them to their utmost capacity, and set sail for Hammerfest, hoping to be able to return with other vessels and secure the remainder. They were disappointed. When they came back, they found the island shut in by miles of drift ice, through which they could not pass. Before spring the skins and blubber were of course useless; so that six or seven hundred walruses were destroyed without benefit to any body. Six years later Mr. Lamont visited the island. Even then the remains of the walruses were piled up two or three deep, many of the skins and carcasses being tolerably entire, in spite of the ravages of bears, foxes, and gulls. The smell of this decaying mass of flesh was perceptible at a distance of several miles. This island, which was formerly known as a famous resort of walruses, is now entirely deserted by them.
To Page 2
"Seal-shooting" - click to greatly enlarge
Site search Web search |
|
|
|
|
