stefansson-wrangel-09-25-008-004

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hundred yards away and moved to it. Such a camp as they had lived in is
suitable only for extremely cold weather. It was a relief to get into tents.

On May 25th, "shortly after breakfast a large bunch of
geese flew up the river bottom near our camp from the south and landed on a
bare spot." From this time on the spring and summer were enlivened by great
numbers of birds of various sorts. Seals, too, were basking on the ice in
every direction from camp nearly every day, and the party began to practice what
the Eskimos call the "crawling method" of hunting. This is simple in theory
but a little difficult in practice and requires unlimited patience. Patience,
indeed, is the chief qualification. That is probably 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 ex-
ploratory journeys around the coast and into the interior. Crawford, Galle and
Knight each made at least one journey of several days alone, and other journeys
were made by parties of two. Maurer seldom went on these tramps, devoting him-
self to the hunting, with the result that of the forty or so seals secured dur-
ing 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; the larger reason probably was that the interest and efforts of the
others centered upon exploring rather than hunting.

The explorations did not yield any unexpected results. The
mountains seem to be about 2000 feet in height. The country is in general rugged
rather than rocky 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