. A voyage to the arctic in the whaler Aurora. ip old times it was customary to lower the boatsand tow the ship through the leads to the abovetune. I was told this, so it may be true. Thenative came on board. He was much more likean American Indian than a Greenland he had been many minutes on board he wastaken aft and relieved of his tusk by the secondmate, getting in return some trifle: the gentlemanbelonged to Navy Board Inlet, on the south side,and not far away. The Captain had had a lot of paddles made forsome of the boats. It was possible to approachwhales with very
. A voyage to the arctic in the whaler Aurora. ip old times it was customary to lower the boatsand tow the ship through the leads to the abovetune. I was told this, so it may be true. Thenative came on board. He was much more likean American Indian than a Greenland he had been many minutes on board he wastaken aft and relieved of his tusk by the secondmate, getting in return some trifle: the gentlemanbelonged to Navy Board Inlet, on the south side,and not far away. The Captain had had a lot of paddles made forsome of the boats. It was possible to approachwhales with very little noise when the paddleswere used, so we tried them frequently for nar-whal hunting. As there were numbers of thesecreatures in sight, we had a couple of boats outafter them. A sharp lookout was kept from thecrows nest for whales coming up the Sound. Wehooked on to the ice about two miles from thesouth shore, and put a boat out on either side ofthe ship and about a hundred yards away. Theseboats were hooked on by laying the long steering. A Good Bag of Bears IN THE WHALER AURORA 153 oar on the ice. Our narwhal hunters had no luck,so they came on board. July 1st. Tuesday. We were fast to the icewith a boat on each side all day. The Captainhad a long interview w^ith the native on the sub-ject of whales. He seemed to understand mapswell, and was able to point out where he had seenfish; from what I could make out, a good numberhad been in the Sound. I spent the afternoon ina boat with the Captain trying to get a saw dozens and came pretty close to severallots, but did not get one good shot, although wefired several times. The harpoons we used for this work were muchsmaller than the regular whaling harpoon andwere made of the same tough Swedish iron. Before turning in I spent an hour on deck andheard narwhals and white whales breathing aboutus all the time. Everything looked propitious. July 2nd. Wednesday. I had a dream duringthe night that we had succeeded in killi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidvoyage, booksubjectwhaling
