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THE FIRST WINTER AND SECOND SUMMER 219

tent slightly damaged by a bear, which had made a hole
in the roof of the storm shed. In two different places
he found where a female bear had given birth to cubs.
Saw a few bear and fox tracks, also several snow bunt-
ings.”

About the middle of May the weather had become so
persistently warm that the winter camp was untenable
any longer. It was leaking and the surroundings had
become boggy. On May 18th they pitched a tent about
a 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 .... all day we have
heard [other] geese without seeing them. In the after-
noon two seals were seen on the ice and Crawford started
for them, but they went down long before he got near
them. He hid near one of the holes for a long period,
but a cold breeze arose, keeping the seals down in the
water.”

From this time on the spring and summer was enli-
vened by great numbers of birds of various sorts. Seals,
too, were basking on top of 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 the probable
explanation of why Maurer soon developed into an
excellent “crawling” hunter and remained the best of
the four at that method of sealing. There seems to have