stefansson-wrangel-09-25-007-004

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sorts. Seals, too, were basking on the ice in every direction from camp
nearly every day, and the party began to practice what the Eslkimos call
the "crawling method" of hunting. This is simple in theory byut a little
little difficult in practice and requires unlimited patience. Patience,
indeed, is the chief qualification. That is the probably explanation of
why Maurer soon developed into an excellent "crawling" hunter and remained
the best at that method of sealing. There seems to have been little
difference between the four hunters in their success with polar bears.

The spring was spent in sealing, bear hunting, and in exploratory
journeys around the coast and into the interior. Crawford, Galle and
Knight each made at least one journey of several days alonge, and other
journeys were made by parties of two. Maurer seldom went on these tramps,
devoting himself to the hunting, with the result that of the forty or so
seals secured during the summer he got twenty-six. This may have been due
in part to his greater mastery of the complicated and delicate technique
of the "crawling" method of sealing hunting; the larger reason probably was
that the interest and efforts of the others centered upon largely on the explor-
ation rather than hunting. of the island.

The exploration did not yield any unexpected results. The mountains
seem to be about 2000 feet in height. The country is in general rugged
rather than rockey or properly mountainous. Certain seasons, as in 1921,
all snow disappears from the land except here and there perhaps a snowbank
in the depths of a ravine; other years, as in 1922, a good deal of snow
persists on the highland. But there seem to be no real glaciers. There
is "excellent reindeer pasturage", both of flowering and non-flowering plants,
though the flowering ones doubtless prevail as they do in most parts of the
arctic -- contrary to the old belief which has mosses and lichens as the chief