stefansson-wrangel-09-31-114v

186 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

and started east to bring back a 4x6 plank that had been
found a few days previous. About two miles east of
camp I came to fresh bear tracks going east. The dogs
immediately became excited and when I got them stopped
I saw the bear a quarter of a mile ahead. Having an
empty sled and no place to tie the dogs, I returned to
camp. ... We did not go back after the bear, for we
already have the carcass of one out on the tundra and no
way to bring it in.”

This entry and many others like it in Knight’s diary
have been the basis for the criticism of various newspaper
commentators who say that not carrying home on their
backs or on pack dogs the meat of the bear killed and
not trying to kill the other shows laziness or incom-
petence, if not both. Before stating our attitude towards
that view we shall consider first the general practice of
those who live by hunting. We can then see what the
attitude of a practiced hunter must necessarily be towards
a narrative such as that of Lome Knight’s diary.

The summer of 1910, for example, we found ourselves in a position
typical for vvdriteTlndian or Eskimo hunters in a country
where game is scarce. We were then on the Coppermine
River in arctic Canada. Game was unusually scarce; all
the cows and younger caribou had left the country and
there were only straggling bulls, found singly or in pairs.
I would frequently hunt from ten to fifteen hours before
seeing the first caribou, and it might then take from one
to several hours to make the approach. When the animal
had beenwas killed, I would spend an hour or two cutting the bones
out of the meat to make it lighter, for I knew that any left
behind would be eaten within a few hours by wolves,
wolverines, ravens or gulls. I would then make up a
back load of anything from seventy-five to a hundred and