# Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History/Chapter 12

Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History by Henry John Elwes was first published in London in 1930, and edited by Edward G. Hawke
CHAPTER XII
SPORT IN NORWAY, 1891–1911: ELK, BEAR AND REINDEER
In 1891 I made my first trip to Norway, mainly on the advice of Mr. E.N. Buxton, whose delightful book, Short Stalks, had first opened my eyes to the comparatively new sport of elk hunting. A few Englishmen had discovered the possibilities of the chase of this splendid beast, which, owing to the close time which had been established, had become comparatively common in the two provinces or "amts" of North and South Trondhjem. Though I missed the best period, which was between about 1880 and 1890, I was fortunate in finding a magnificent tract of country, which at that time had only been hunted by the natives, and was quite unspoilt by tourists. I first went over in June and made the acquaintance of Peter Norbye, a well-to-do farmer who lived at Selbo about thirty miles from Trondhjem, and who for several years afterwards was my companion and guide in the district. On his advice and with his help I rented from the peasant farmers the whole of the elk hunting-rights in the valley of Tydal, which extended from Selbo right up to the high fjelds on the Swedish frontier. According to the Norwegian law each proprietor has the right to kill one elk, or, in the case of very large farms, two elks, during the season, which then lasted only from September 1st till September 30th in South Trondhjem, and for ten days later in North Trondhjem.
We drove up the Tydal valley, forty-eight kilometres, to the principal centre at Ostby and there met a number of the farmers, who agreed to let me the whole of the rights, forty-two in number, for three years at the price of 1,200 kroner, and I must say that they carried out their part of the bargain most honourably, and did everything in their power to make our tenancy agreeable and successful. Besides the rights at Tydal, I also took a number in the parish of Selbo, so that if we were driven down by snow from the upper valley there might be ample room for a large party in the lower-lying fjelds and forest.
My late friend, William Cripps, agreed to go shares with me, and about the middle of August we set out with our wives and children, making a party of ten, with a handyman as servant. I succeeded in getting two setters smuggled over in one of the Hull steamers, so that we might have some ryper shooting before the elk hunting began, and we arrived at Lovoen, which is a large farm in upper Tydal, a week after starting. Here we made our headquarters for a time in a large comfortable farmhouse belonging to Lars Lovoen, an elderly farmer who rented an immense tract of fjeld from an institute in Trondhjem, and had a good deal of barter with the Lapps who pastured their reindeer in the higher mountains, and whose headquarters are at Roros, thirty miles to the south-east.
We had an excellent Norwegian cook, and lived well and comfortably at Lovoen, which is about 2,000 feet above sea-level and near the limit of forest. The sport during August consisted of excellent trout fishing and fair ryper shooting, and the surroundings were delightful. There ​was great variety of other game besides ryper, and the bag, though small, was extremely varied. I remember one day on which we began by beating the woods up to the edge of the fjeld, where capercaillie, black game and hjerpe or hazel grouse were found. On reaching the high fjeld, we divided into two parties, and shot ryper with the help of the dogs, picking up a few snipe and odd woodcock, and golden plover in the course of the walk. After lunch we went still higher and found a good many fjeld ryper or ptarmigan on the rocky top of Blaahommen, a mountain about 4,000 feet high, where I also found a small party of dottrel. On the way back, we got two or three ducks and teal on the edge of a marshy lake, so that eleven kinds of game were included in the bag in one day. We found tracks of elk up to at least 3,000 feet, and on more than one occasion came quite close to elk which were lying in small thickets of birch, far out on the fjeld and above the forest, which here reached to a little over 2,000 feet. This year was one of those which occur at varying intervals, in which the lemmings increase and multiply to such an extent that they are forced to migrate in immense numbers to lower ground in search of food, and in consequence there were great numbers of roughlegged buzzards and other birds of prey. Snowy owls, which feed largely on lemmings, had bred in the district, and I obtained from the Lapps four young snowy owls of which we succeeded in bringing three home alive to England, where they lived for some time in Lord Lilford's aviaries. In order to supply the owls with food on the voyage, I had 200 live lemmings put in boxes, but they fought so desperately with each other that most of them were killed before we got on board the steamer. The fearless nature of these little animals is very striking, for they seem to have no idea of danger, and will stand squeaking in your path without trying to get away. When they come to a lake or river they go straight into the water, and I have seen thousands at a time trying to swim across a large lake, where most of them were drowned. The water in some places was so much contaminated by the number of dead lemmings that we could not drink it, and the grass was in places almost destroyed. But in the following years we saw few or none, and though much has been written by Scandinavian naturalists about these animals, I do not think their wonderful increase in numbers at long intervals has ever been fully explained.
About the natural history of Norway, what struck me most was the scarcity of birds on the lakes and marshes. A few black-throated divers, mergansers, scoters and sandpipers were almost all that I saw on Tydal, where snipe, woodcock and ducks generally were very scarce in September. I do not think I shot a duck or teal in the three seasons I was there. Geese were occasionally seen flying south, but I never saw any breeding. There are, however, some lakes on the Swedish frontier near Noroli in North Trondhjem where grey geese are said to breed in great numbers, as they do on the island of Smolen, where my cousin, Patrick Musters of Annesley, has had great sport with them. There were also very few birds of prey. In the lemming year rough-legged buzzards and snowy owls bred on the fjelds, but in other years kestrels and an occasional eagle were almost the only ones. Owls I never saw, though once or twice I heard the cry ​of the great eagle owl at night. Woodpeckers were also very scarce in the forest, and I only once saw and shot the great black woodpecker in Namdalen. One of the most familiar birds was the Siberian jay, which is as tame and inquisitive here as everywhere in the northern forests. Crossbills and finches were scarce; magpies were everywhere common and much tamer than in England. Ravens were seen and heard almost every day, whilst tits, pipits and wagtails were the commonest small birds.
As regards mammalia there was also a great scarcity. I never saw a glutton, lynx or marten, though they all exist in the district. Blue foxes were fairly common on the high fjeld but not often seen. Hares were not at all plentiful. Squirrels, much darker in colour than in England, were also scarce. One of the most interesting animals which still occurs in a very few places in South Norway is the beaver, which, thanks to the representations of my friend Professor Collett of Christiania (Oslo), is now strictly preserved. He has published an excellent account of their habits.
At this time I had no knowledge of the habits of elk, and the farmers of Upper Tydal were not experienced hunters, so as we heard that the lower lying forests were more easy to hunt than the high ground, which I afterwards found is not the case, we returned to Selbo for the 1st September, which was the opening day. I started out in a carriole with Peter Norbye at daylight for my first day's elk hunting, which was to be at a farm six miles away, where the farmer told us that elk were often feeding almost among his cows. And this proved to be true, for in a very short time we found a barren cow-elk and a two-year-old bull feeding on a ridge not far off, and watched them as the cows with their herd passed along below them not 100 yards off, only stopping their browse on the young mountain-ash, which at this season is their favourite food, for a few minutes till the herd had gone by. By making a short circuit, we succeeded in getting within thirty yards of the elk, which, however, I could only see parts of among the thick bushes, and as meat was the main object on this occasion, I fired and wounded the cow. Peter slipped his dog, which was young and inexperienced, and soon came back to us, and we followed the tracks of the cow in a manner which I now know to be futile. But fortune often favours the inexperienced hunter, and as after two or three hours' tracking we found that she was going round and round, it was suggested that the farmer's son, who was with us,'should show me a ford in the river much used by elk, and leave me there whilst he followed up the track with Peter.
I had not been waiting more than half an hour when I heard a shot not far off, and almost at once the elk appeared at the edge of the forest and came trotting over the clattering stones of the ford. I had a very easy shot at fifty yards and killed her dead, to the great delight of the fanner, who, like most of his kind, preferred a fat cow weighing perhaps 600 or 700 pounds, to the finest bull-elk in Norway, After butchering the elk and drinking coffee at the farm, where the people were—as I have always found them—friendly and hospitable, we drove home in triumph, and I began to think that elk hunting was an easier form of sport than I had supposed, The next day we arranged with the ladies to meet us ​for a picnic on the shore of a lake called Slindvand, in the forest, and started with the boys very early to an island in another much larger lake, Sorungen, where elk were said to be often lying. About ten o'clock we got to where a boat was kept, and rowed up-wind to the island, where we posted ourselves at various spots where the elk might take the water when disturbed. The Norwegians then started with their dogs to drive the forest which covered the island. Sure enough, the elk were there, and in a very short time an elk came down to the shore near where two of the boys were watching. A regular fusillade ensued, and, though the slayer of the elk remained in dispute, a fine cow was slain in the water. We had, in chaff, assured the ladies that we would bring them meat for the picnic, and as they reached the landing-place our boat came in with the dead elk in tow.
As a proof of the wonderful nose which some of the elk-dogs possess, I may say that one which was lying half asleep in the boat winded the elk when we got the right wind about two miles away; and I have known another dog lead me up to fresh tracks on a good scenting day which he had winded at least 400 yards away.
We now began to think that elk hunting was mere sport for boys, and that if they could be got as easily as this the number of rights we had acquired would not suffice for the whole month. But before another week had passed, many often wet and weary hours had been spent in tracking through the deep woods and marshes which surrounded these lakes. With no result but tumbles over the fallen and slippery logs, and firing two or three fruitless shots at the stern of disturbed elk vanishing in the forest, we began to think that it was not so easy as it seemed.
And looking backward with the knowledge afterwards gained in these and other hunting grounds, I am confident that the system followed by the hunters of Selbo was utterly wrong, and that even if the big bulls, which we fondly hoped to find, had been at that season in the forest, and not as they actually were on the fjeld miles away above timber line, we should, by following tracks however fresh, have disturbed many more than we ever saw; and we had little chance of getting the cunning old bulls even if we had seen them. Every now and then, of course, if you work carefully up wind, especially in rough and windy weather with a keen-nosed dog in a leash, in forest where elk exist, you may come on one feeding in the early morning or evening before he sees or hears you, and you may get a shot at fairly close range, such as Norwegian hunters love, and kill him or her as the case may be. But this is not scientific elk hunting, which I afterwards learnt from a Lapp of whom I shall have much to say later.
As we were three in number, each of whom had engaged a hunter with his dogs, and did not want to separate at first, we imagined that by carefully selecting positions on ridges between two lakes or posting ourselves at favourite fords, and sending the hunters miles round to beat the forest down-wind, we might succeed in driving elk as the Swedes and Russians do. But though on one occasion Cripps did have a good bull come close past him which he wounded and lost, and I got a cow which on a ​dead still day walked up to within ten yards of me to meet her fate, yet we found that the habits of elk do not allow them to he driven with any sort of certainty, and that they nearly always turn and go up-wind when they know they are hunted, so that the most carefully planned drives generally fail.
And though we persevered for the whole month and went over an immense tract of country, sleeping on various farms, and occasionally camping out for a night in the saeters in order to be nearer to our best ground, the result of the first year was not very successful as regards elk, and no big heads were brought home.
But I had become so enamoured of the country, and had got on so well with the people, and generally enjoyed myself so much, that I went back the next year keener than ever, and this time spent much more time in the higher valley at Graesli, Aune, Lovoen and Stuedal, the last farm towards the Swedish frontier. This year I had some good days after reindeer, of which a few escapes or wanderers from the Lapps or Swedish herds were to be found on the higher mountains. Though not perhaps as wild or wary as genuine wild reindeer, they had to be treated and approached with every bit as much precaution, and one never knew till you got them whether they had been marked in youth or not. I heard that a very big stag had been seen near the top of Oifjeld, a mountain about 5,000 feet high, six or seven miles cast of Ostby, So I started one morning alone on a pony with a rifle and shot-gun, a setter and a lad to lead him, intending to look for ryper if the reindeer were not there. I reached the highest saeter on the mountain about eleven, after ten miles' ride, tied up my pony and setter and left my gun, and after ascending to near the summit made out some deer feeding in a very easy place to stalk them in. When I got near enough to spy them well I saw one stag with a very good head indeed, and several others not so good though quite shootable. But the big one always kept on the far side of the others out of shot, and though I crawled about on the frozen snow until my fingers had lost sensation, and waited a long time to get in at him, I was at last obliged to kill the best of the others before they went off for good. Reindeer on such ground generally feed along much faster than red deer, and rarely remain long in one place when not lying down, so that in broken ground you may very soon lose them. However, my stag was very fat, and after gralloching him and tying my handkerchief to his horns to keep the ravens and foxes off, I went back to the saeter and sent the lad back to Ostby to get a sledge to get the deer home that night. I then lunched, took out the setter and had three or four hours' very pleasant ryper shooting before the lad returned with a man and a cart from Ostby. They then unharnessed the pony, packed a light sledge on his back, and started for the place where I told him the reindeer lay about 4 p.m. I went back to Aune, where we were going to sleep, arriving about seven, and the man arrived with the reindeer at twelve at night, having then five miles to go back to his home. I asked him how much I was to pay him for the job and he said four kroners. I merely mention this to show ​the honesty and willingness to oblige strangers of the Norwegian peasants, in districts where they have not been spoilt by tourists or, what is even worse, by rich sportsmen. I never during my three years in Selbo and Tydal had a single case of overcharging or the slightest attempt to infringe the bargain which I had made with the farmers of the valley for their sporting-rights. At the same time, I must say that I owed a great deal of this to the presence and advice of Peter Norbye, who, like all farmers, was keen at a bargain, and told me that the people would respect us all the more if we were the same. On my first attempt to buy a sheep for meat the farmer brought one too lean for my taste, and when I turned it on its back to feel the breast and said it would not do, he was surprised that an Englishman should know how to handle sheep. He fetched another for which he asked twelve kroner, but was satisfied with the ten I offered; after that we always agreed about price. For our lodgings and as much milk, cream and cheese as we wanted we paid one kroner per head per day, and as we wanted little more but groceries it was a wonderfully cheap trip.
I have never in any country found a rural population for whom I have such a high respect and liking as for the Norwegian farmers of the inland districts. In all affairs of local government, which they manage almost entirely for themselves, honesty, economy and good sense seem to be practised to an extent which no other country can show; and when we consider how poor that country is, how hard and difficult life is for the farmers in the remote inland districts, I must say that I know no people who can equal them in real civilisation. But they are people who must be treated with the respect that is due to them, for though their government is highly democratic, they are aristocratic in many of their ideas and feelings and intensely patriotic and self-reliant as well. I remember having a long discussion one day with Peter Norbye, who was considered a radical in the district, as to the extension of the parliamentary franchise which was then proposed. Pie said that "Husmen"—who are a sort of sub-tenants on the large farms, often almost indistinguishable from the actual proprietors in manners and appearance—had no right to votes, and that he would vote against this innovation though his party were advocating it. On another occasion, when the question of the separation of Norway from Sweden became a burning question in Norwegian politics. I asked him why he, who had so much intercourse with Swedes and so many friends in Jemtland, could no longer live in union with them. He replied that the Swedes always treated them as an inferior nation, but that if it came to a fight the Norwegians would show that they were as good as the Swedes. I asked how the small population of Norway could resist the power of Sweden, if it came to blows, and he said that they had done it before, and if the Swedes invaded Norway they would meet the same fate as had befallen the Swedish army which invaded Trondhjem and had been attacked and routed in the snow on their way back in winter. And as he pointed out to me not many miles away the place where this had actually happened, this usually quiet and peaceablelooking man fired up, and his eyes glared in a way that showed me how deep his feeling was.
​But now they have separated without bloodshed or ill-feeling in a way that is almost, if not quite, unique in history, and I believe that if an enemy was to attack Sweden the Norwegians would be just as ready to light on their side as when the two countries were united.
During my second year in Tydal I had often heard of the hunting exploits of a certain Ole Larsen, a Swede from the frontier district of Jemtland, who had the reputation of killing elk with or without leave or right wherever he found them. As the local hunters did not seem to be able to find the big bulls which were often reported as having been seen or tracked in the valley, a letter was written to Ole Larsen inviting him to come and help us. One very wet evening we were sitting after dinner before a roaring fire at Aune about the middle of September, when a very thin, poorly dressed and badly shod individual, who had more, the appearance of a clerk out of work than of a mighty hunter, came in dripping with rain and accompanied by a couple of wolfish looking grey elk-hounds, and carrying a rusty old breech-loader which did not look as if it had been cleaned for years. As he sat to dry himself before the fire and eat his supper, I asked him, through Peter, if lie ever cleaned his rifle. He replied that if the cartridge would go into the breech, and lie could see down the barrel, the bullet would go right enough, and we learnt by degrees that this was quite true, for, during the week I hunted with him, we got four elk of which two fell to his rifle, and if he got up to the elk first, I believe he would not have waited even for the King of Sweden to shoot first. Ole Larsen was, if the truth was told, a desperate poacher, and at the time was wanted in his own country on various charges, but he taught me the art of hunting with loose dogs, the system commonly adopted in Sweden, though illegal in Norway at present, and so well described by Mr. E.N. Buxton in Short Stalks that I will not say much about it. I very soon found that I was too old, too slow, and not half tough enough to follow loose dogs to the end in such a country as this. And though, no doubt, it is a most deadly way of killing elk, for a young man in first-class condition who is not afraid to sleep in his wet clothes in the forest if the chase leads him too far from home; yet it has the great drawback that, when the dogs have brought an elk to bay, it has to be killed regardless of age or sex, in order to blood the dogs, which are said to become slack if, after bringing an elk to bay, the hunter does not come up and shoot it. Old bull elk which have not been disturbed and have not winded the hunter will often stand after a very short run, as I found out soon afterwards; but if the hunter comes up down-wind, or if the elk breaks bay from any other cause, they will often go for very long distances, and if the day is windy and the country rough, the hunter sometimes loses his dog altogether.
Peter Norbye told me that he formerly had a dog which would stay with an elk all night, and that on one occasion, when he had been run out of hearing, and had had to sleep in the forest, he heard his dog in the still night baying the elk, and was able himself to get up and kill the elk at daybreak. It is a more exciting sport than hunting with a dog in a leash, but too hard work for most men, and nothing like so scientific as the method adopted by the best hunters, who never under any circum​stances slip their dog, which remains absolutely mute even when the elk is in sight a few yards off.
We had some awful weather at this time and a heavy fall of snow took place, which melted as it fell, and made the rivers impassable in many places. The day after this snow I started late with Larsen and his dogs, sending a pony with food and blankets on to a saeter called Skarpdal, four or five hours' walk from Aune, to which we intended to hunt our way. Neither of us had been to this saeter before, but there was a pony track which led up the valley, and I thought that with the help of the excellent map, than which no better exists in any country for showing the features of the district, we should be able to find it. About three in the afternoon, when we were more than half-way, following the tracks of the pony in the slushy snow, we came on fresh tracks of four elk, which led up to a thicket of birch above timber line. If I had been alone or with a dog used to hunting in leash, I dare say I could have got up to them, but Larsen seemed to think that the covert was too thick to get a shot in. As soon as his dogs got wind of the elk, he slipped them. Off they dashed, and in three minutes appeared close to a big bull which had separated from the others. He ran and I ran, and the farther we went the farther I was left behind, but in a mile or two the elk stood, and Larsen crept up and shot him, a twenty-two pointer with small points, looking like a head that was going back. I ran up as quick as I could, and when we had gralloched the elk, and Larsen had refreshed himself with a double handful of warm blood, which he drank with as much gusto as if it had been whisky, we began to think we should hardly reach the saeter before dark. For though we followed the pony's track as long as we could see it in the melting snow, the path was quite hidden, and when it got dark, though we had forded the three streams which I knew we had to cross, I could see no light, nor had the least idea how to find the Avay. Larsen, however, opened the breech of his rifle and blew a note through the barrel which sounded something like that of a hunting-horn, saying that if his other dog, which had gone on with the pony, could hear it, he would bark. Sure enough, in a little while we could just hear a distant bay, and stumbled on in that direction as best we could. At last I fired a shot, and got an answering hail from the saeter, of which we at last saw the light on the hillside half a mile off. When at last Ave got close to it, we found another stream so swollen by the melting snows that without the help of the pony, which the lad brought out to help us, I do not think I could have crossed in the dark. And never was warmth and shelter more welcome than that saeter afforded after a long hard day in the snow; after fresh elk kidney and liver for supper Ave slept as well as possible, instead, as I expected, of having to bivouac under a tree in the snow.
Next day I hunted my way back to Aune without seeing any tracks worth following, but I had a lucky shot on the day following. It happened in this way. I had hunted over the top of the hill on the other side of the river, and in the afternoon slipped one dog in hope of his finding an elk which had been moving about in the early morning, but which had gone down into the forest. The dog went oft and found him, but we could not ​hear the bay, as the wind had become strong. After an hour or two, as it was getting late, and the dog was still absent, I determined to go home. As we were picking our way through a windfall, I heard stick crack in the forest, and unslung my rifle in a hurry, I was just in time to see the brushwood move as an elk trotted through it, and I had a glimpse only of horns which looked pretty good. Holding well forward, I got a snapshot, as he passed across a slight opening only partly in sight, and fired. The elk ran on, and as the dog came up on his track we ran on, and found him dead with a bullet through his heart, a hundred yards below in a thicket. This was a fair bull of about five years old with ten points, and the best I had hitherto killed. Such chances rarely occur, but it taught me to make a rule which I have always adhered to since, which is that, however hopeless things might seem, I would never let anyone else carry my rifle, as stalkers so often do in Scotland.
As I was unable to talk to Larsen, and the local men seemed jealous of his success, I let him go soon after, and returned home on October 1st without having got any more bulls, though I hunted over a lot of good ground and got two more elk.
The following season I returned to the same valley with Sir Frederick Carrington, who was at home on leave, and Mr. Staniland, and we had a fairly successful season in Tydal, though our sport was a good deal interfered with by the number of reindeer which were scattered over the upper part of the valley. It appeared that during the preceding winter a large herd in Sweden had been broken up and stampeded by some cause, and had crossed the fjelds into Norway followed only by one of the Lapp herders, who arrived half dead from exposure at Stuedal. Many of these deer were never recovered, and the Norwegian farmers, finding that they were pulling down the little hay-stacks which are put up at any little forest meadow where there is enough grass to be worth cutting, began to hunt them, and disturbed our ground so much that we had to give it up.
On one occasion I found two fine reindeer stags in a lovely valley between Stuedal and Roros lying under a rock on the shore of a little mountain lake. I stalked them successfully, but they bolted at the last moment and I fired a snapshot at one of them as they rushed round the rock. Running forward I came in sight of the shore, and got another shot at a stag running along it. He at once turned into the water, and I lulled him with a second shot twenty yards from the bank. Peter waded in and pulled him out, a splendid stag with white head and neck and in very prime condition. After gralloching him I went back to the rock to sec what had become of the other one, and found him also dead, close to where I had fired. We lived on the meat of these stags for a fortnight, and though I am not a great meat eater, I have never tasted anything to equal thin slices of really fat reindeer toasted or grilled, and eaten with cranberries and hot flat brod. It is often said that one's appreciation of what one eats in camp or when in the wilds is due to appetite, but I brought a haunch of one of these deer home, and tried it against a perfect haunch of fallow buck at a dinner-party at Colesborne; when the unanimous opinion was that the reindeer was much the more delicate and tender meat of the two. What one generally gets as reindeer meat in Norwegian ​towns is poor stuff in comparison, usually killed too early or too late in the season and more or less smoked to make it keep.
On my next visit to Norway, in 1895, I was fortunate enough to obtain, from the late Sir Henry Pottinger, the right of hunting in the district of Mo, a hundred miles north of Namsos in North Trondhjem amt, which I believe was then perhaps the best ground for elk in Norway. It was the private property of the late Mr. Collett, whose timber-felling operations had now been closed. As his farm tenants were not hunters, and there were no Lapps on the ground, the elk which Sir Henry had carefully nursed for some years were less disturbed than in any place I have shot over. I had the immense advantage during the season of the company and advice of Elias Eliassen, a Lapp who had been used to going with Sir Henry Pottinger, and for whom I soon acquired a respect, liking and esteem which I have never had for any man of his class in any other country. Elias was a poor man, owning no reindeer, who made his living by working in the woods, trapping and fishing. Though he spoke very little English when I first knew him, he picked it up very quickly, and whenever he did not quite understand, he asked me to repeat my words slowly. He was the most perfect master of what I may truly call the science of finding and approaching elk with a leash dog. No Norwegian that I ever went with could compare with him for knowledge of the animals' habits or for patience and freedom from excitement in critical moments. He was absolutely honest, sober and truthful, clean in his habits and a perfect gentleman in character. I think that he also acquired a liking for me, and when he accompanied my son to Tydal fifteen years later, Elias, though an elderly man and a stranger in the district, was successful in taking my son's wife up to the two best bull elk which were killed that year in the district, after the ground had been unsuccessfully worked by the local hunters. I learnt so much from Elias about the elk and my month's hunting at Mo was so successful, that I was afterwards induced to write a paper on the "Present Conditions and Habits of the Elk in Norway," in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1903, pp. 133-157. In this paper I brought together many interesting observations from various sources, which were then unknown to zoologists, and figured several heads of special interest.
Most Norwegian hunters get so excited when in sight of elk that they are always hurrying you to shoot. They do not seem to realise that you can see and hear as well as, or often better than, they can, and that as you have no dog to distract your attention you are more likely to see the elk first, Elias, however, after the first day left me entirely to myself, and if he saw anything first said nothing but only motioned me to go first. The result of this was that in the course of twenty days' hunting together during the month of September we found thirty cows, fifteen calves and seventeen bulls, of which some were not good enough to shoot. Two I left to my friend Byng, and ten I seriously hunted, the result being that I shot at and got seven of them, and one dry cow on the first day, which I shot to try a new rifle and please the farmer on whose land she was. I could certainly have killed at least eight or ten more cows if I had wanted them.
​I attribute this great success partly to the nature of the ground, which was often open enough to enable you to see elk at a distance and stalk them without the use of the dog, secondly, to Elias's skill and intimate knowledge of the ground and habits of the elk, and lastly to the principle which he always acted on of going very slowly when near elk, of never following tracks without making constant casts on both sides to give the dog the wind of any likely places where the elk might have turned back. Elias always said that it was better to spend three or four hours in approaching an elk in such a way and at such a time as to enable you to sec him before he saw or heard you, than to spend the time in running after disturbed beasts, or looking for fresh ones; and sometimes when we had got near what he believed to be a good bull on very still days, or in very thick forest, he would suggest leaving it and coining back the next day.
I must not omit to mention Pasop, the dog with Elias. This was Sir Henry Pottinger's and my favourite dog among many that we had tried, and I believe he had been at the death of about forty elk in the course of six or seven seasons. Elias had the greatest possible regard for him and never when in or near the forest, or where elk might be, allowed him to be loose, as he considered it to be ruinous to a dog used for elk hunting to be slipped, or to have the chance of running an elk. Pasop was, like his master, very deliberate in his actions, and though he could wind an elk as far as and as certainly as any dog, did not want to rush and strain when the scent was hot, as most elk dogs do. lie was keen enough but not too keen, and when an elk was killed used to take very little notice of the body and never seemed to care about the blood and offal with which the hunters usually reward their dogs after a kill. Whilst the butchering was going on—-and Elias was far cleaner and more methodical in this work than any hunter I have had—Pasop would, after a titbit or two, lie quietly down and go to sleep as though it was an everyday occurrence. Until I knew the dog well I often thought he was slack, but Elias knew very well when he was near elk; and though Pasop would on rare occasions take notice of and perhaps go a little way on the scent of a fox, he did not, as many good dogs do, draw up to capercaillie or ryper. I never had him on the fresh track of a bear, but I do not think he had ever been entered to or seen one.
As Sir Henry Pottinger in his most interesting book, Flood, Fell and Forest (Arnold, 1905), has given so good an idea of the method he followed, I will only describe two days which are specially interesting.
The first was on September 22nd, when we had spent the night after a blank day in a hut built near the south end of Storvand, a lake seven or eight miles long, surrounded by steep hills clothed with birch and pines up to about 600 feet above the water. The night was so wet and stormy, and the roof leaked $0 much, that after a rather broken sleep I was ready to start before daybreak, and as the wind was blowing up the lakes we took the boat intending to row to the far end, and hunt our way back up-wind. Rowing quietly along the shore in the dull misty morning, I spied a bull lying close to the shore about 150 yards off, and slipped my rifle out of the cover, signing to the men to row gently on without speaking. The bull rose and gazed at the boat, and as I saw he would not stand long, ​I took a careful aim at his chest as he stood facing me. I either shot too low or underestimated the distance, for he immediately jumped round and disappeared in the thicket. We landed and found blood on the tracks which led straight up the steep hillside, and out into a very broken and rugged country covered with rocks, long heather, little swamps and patches of pines and birch thickets. For two hours we followed the trail on which the drops of blood became less and less, till they ceased altogether. I now noticed several young pines on which an elk had recently cleaned his horns, and suspected that others were not far off. Pasop soon became as keen as he ever was, though he was never a hard dog to hold, and led us towards a dense thicket which covered both sides of a narrow rocky ridge, where the elk might very likely have waited. As Elias thought it was unwise to follow him into this, we went round down-wind and climbed up to a good spying point from which I could see a lot of country. After a good look we saw a bull elk come out of the covert and lie down on the bank of a little pond a quarter of a mile away, but as his horns seemed smaller than those of the bull I had wounded, and he was not watching his tracks as a wounded one would have done, I suspected that it was a fresh elk. I could easily have approached and shot him, and Elias urged me to do so; but as I did not want to lose my right on this farm, where the laws against killing two on the same ground are strictly kept, I went back to the place where we had left the track, and after a little casting around found that the wounded beast had passed on through the thicket and gone down towards another lake. An hour afterwards we found a new track keeping company with the one we were following, and not distinguishable by their size, so it was clear that our quarry had found a new companion. The tracks soon led straight down to the lake and entered the water together, and we had to go two miles along the shore to cross the river and get to the other side. Following the shore we eventually found the place where the two elk had left the water, and then the tracks separated. It was impossible to tell which was the hunted animal and which the fresh one, so Elias just let Pasop smell them both and take his own choice. As it turned out he chose right, and we could soon see, by the way the elk behaved, that he knew he was being followed, for he stopped more than once on the top of ridges where he could see his back-tracks, and then went on down-wind without ever giving us the chance to see him. About three o'clock we came to a ridge which overlooked a great marshy flat, a mile wide, on the other side of which was a long thick birch wood covering the side of a hill which rose up towards the open field, and beyond which there was no more forest or brushwood for a great distance.
After spying the ground carefully in the direction the tracks led, which pointed towards the up-wind end of the birchwood, which was perhaps a mile long and three or four hundred yards wide, I was sure that he had gone into it, and I was nearly sure that he would turn down-wind when he entered it and that it would be impossible to approach him. I suggested to Elias that I should go along to the down-wind end of the covert, and take my chance of the elk coming out within shot, whilst he followed on the tracks through the covert with Pasop.
​Elias, however, thought that an elk which had shown so much cunning and knew he was pursued would not go down-wind, but would, as soon as he heard or winded his pursuer, turn out of the covert over the fjeld, or more probably come out on the lower side and return towards the country he had left in the morning. And he suggested that nay best chance was to leave the tracks altogether, go to the down-wind end of the covert, and hunt it carefully up-wind, so as to come on him from the side where he suspected no danger. And so we did, but just before entering the covert I saw half-way up it, and perhaps a hundred yards from the point where we intended to enter it, a slight movement among the birches which I guessed must be caused by an elk's horns.
And so it proved to be, for as soon as we got high enough for Pasop to get the wind, he told us as plainly as if lie could speak that an elk was not far off. The covert was divided into strips by little gullies running down the slope, and as we came to the top of each little rise we lay down and spied all the ground most carefully before us, watching the dog all the while, as we knew he would tell us when we got close to the elk. At last Pasop began to stare at a fixed point, and I knew that his nose told him that the elk was not far off. But it was so thick in front, that though I thought I could make out a dark patch between two trees which might be a part of the elk, it did not move at all, and I could not tell what part it was. I waited and waited, hoping that it would move and give me a better chance, but Elias whispered at last that he was certain that it was an elk and that I had better fire at what I could sec before it began to get dark. My mark was divided in two by a birch stem perhaps four inches thick, and I judged that this was not thick enough to stop my bullet, so I aimed very carefully and ran up to the place as quickly as possible. I found that the bullet had passed through the birch tree straight into the elk's neck, and he had fallen dead without a struggle, about eight hours after I had first seen and wounded him. He was a fine sixteen-pointer and is now stuffed in my hall, as a memorial of one of the most interesting days I ever had after elk.
Another day I was returning home in a heavy storm of wind and rain after killing a good bull on Brotten Farm, and came by chance on a bull which was standing in a dense thicket. I was not more than forty yards off and thought I could see about where his heart should be. As I was now on another farm where no elk had been killed this year, I chanced the shot, but found by the tracks that the bull had gone off with a cow, and did not seem to be seriously wounded, but it was too late to follow. Next morning we returned to the spot and followed the tracks till we came to a little hill-top covered with spruce, where the elk had stood all night without feeding. Elias searched about and found some fresh dung, from the appearance of which he made sure that the elk was hit in the stomach. We then got on the trail and followed it down-wind for some time through country where he was not likely to stand, judging by the tracks that the bull was following the cow. When we got to more likely ground we made a detour, and saw both bull and cow walking along slowly, the cow always leading and looking back for the bull, who was apparently unable to keep up with her. We managed to cut them off, ​and I got a long shot at the bull, the effect of which I could not judge of, as he still kept on, though slowly. A mile further on I caught him up again, and got another shot, after which the cow left the bull and went off at a trot, whilst he turned along the rocky ledge of a steep rocky hillside covered with scattered trees.
I now found that I could go as fast as he could, but the slope was so steep that I could not get a side shot, and at last took aim at the tail, what Fred Carrington always called the Boer shot. This turned him straight down the steep slippery rocks, which lay at an angle of perhaps forty degrees, and which I was obliged to slide down on my back as I could not stand on the slope. At the bottom the elk stopped and faced me on a flat piece of bog, and when I approached to finish him made an attempt at a charge, the only time I ever saw an elk face his pursuers. I shot him dead as he staggered towards me at fifteen paces, and found that the wonderfully strong and hardy beast had no less than five 500-bore express bullets in various parts of his body, any one of which must have proved mortal.
This was an eighteen-pointer, but the horns were not very wide. It seems to me that an elk which has not developed a wide head in his younger days never gets one, though he may get a great many points as he gets old. The natives think one fresh point on each side is added every year, and in Norway a total of twenty-eight points is very rarely exceeded. There is, however, a shed horn in the house at Mo which has sixteen well-developed points. This is the finest single horn I have ever seen. The widest is one I bought of Herr Bruun, the well-known furrier of Trondhjem, which has eighteen points and is fifty-four inches wide. I have another eighteenpointer fifty-two inches wide, and these two are the widest from Europe recorded by Ward. Whilst I am on this subject I may say that by far the finest Scandinavian heads axe from North Trondhjem amt, those from South Norway being much smaller. The shape and set of Scandinavian heads differ a little from those found in Russia, which, as far as I have seen, usually form a more acute angle; and European heads generally are of a different type and smaller than American moose heads.
The last day of the season was again a very lucky one. There was on the farm of Mo, which we made our headquarters and usually hunted on Saturday or Monday, an elk which was well known by the unusual size of his tracks, and which was supposed to be the very big bull which Colonel Walker and Sir H. Pottinger had hunted on many occasions during previous seasons. I had been after him several times without success, and once when we thought we had him cornered on a ledge high up on the banks of the Salvand and tried to drive him out, he had run back, almost knocking down a driver. But both Elias and Erik, who was the local hunter, believed that he bore a charmed life, as Colonel Walker had wounded him several years ago and Sir H. Pottinger, who did not often miss, had once missed him. I had given up all hopes of getting a shot at him, and had started early to visit a distant part of the farm which we had never been able to reach.
Within a mile of the house we found quite fresh tracks of a cow and calf accompanied by a bull, which from the size of the footprints could only ​be the big bull of Mo. I could see that Elias was not very keen about trying for him, but as the footprints led straight into a small thick wood which we could hunt up-wind, I determined to have another try for him, and hunted through the wood with extraordinary care and deliberation. After some time we took the tracks out into an open fjeld where there was no covert for miles, and Elias looked at me as much as to say, "I told you so." Half an hour later, whilst pegging away over the bare fjeld to make up for lost time, Pasop became interested in a scent which seemed very sweet to him. But as no tracks were visible, and the ground was utterly bare in the direction of the wind for a long distance, and the country too high, as I thought, for elk at that season, I suggested to Elias that it might be a fox or a stray reindeer that he winded. Many Norse elk-hounds will take up and run a scent of either of these, and I have known them draw up to a capercaillie; but Pasop was not addicted to small game and Elias had the greatest faith in his steadiness. So we spied the ground up-wind with our glasses, and could find no place where even a calf could hide, and after going half a mile, against my own judgment, I wanted to resume our original plan as the morning was getting on. Elias, however, persuaded me to try a little further, and about a mile from the place where Pasop had first got wind I saw the ears of a cow elk lying clown behind a big stone, I knew the bull could not be far off, and crawled on alone, keeping the stone between me and the elk's head and spying every bit of fresh ground as it came in view. When about a hundred yards from the elk I saw that her calf was lying by her side, and that I should not much longer be able to keep both their heads covered. When only twenty or thirty yards off, the calf saw me and jumped tip, and knowing that the bull, if in sight, would be off at once, I jumped up and came in sight of the top of a little dell full of birch scrub, into which the cow and calf bolted. Then a glimpse of horns showed between the bushes, and I had to take a snapshot as one does at a rabbit among furze bushes. A crash told me that something was down, and there stone dead I found to my great joy the big bull of Mo, which had for so many years defeated the cunning of better hunters than myself.
His head though carrying eighteen points was, however, very disappointing, as the horns had been going back for years, and the body was so thin and so far advanced in the rut that it smelt ranker than any I had ever killed. I cannot be sure that this was the same bull of which so many tales had been told, and whose shed horns, figured in the Zoological Society's Proceedings, 1903, p. 142, arc the largest I have seen from Scandinavia. But as far as I could learn the big bull of Mo was never seen again, and I much fear that such elk are now no longer living in those parts of Norway. This was a capital finish to the best season I ever had, but not my last in Elias's company. For, before leaving Norway, I secured a number of excellent rights in upper Namdalen, and arranged that Elias and his brother Thomas should meet me there the following year, at a farm called Linsetmo, where we got comfortable quarters.
FIG. 8.-THE AUTHOR SEATED ON AN ELK.
I began to think that, like the Emperor of Austria, I should not find the Great Bear my lucky star; for as the story was told me in Styria, the Emperor, though a very keen sportsman, has not been able to shoot one, On one occasion a great magnate in Carinthia had reports from his keepers of a bear being seen on his property. He telegraphed at once to the Emperor to come and shoot. Keepers were posted in every pass by which it was possible for the bear to get out of the glen in which he was, and a cordon of men placed across the entrance to the valley. So sure was the noble sportsman of his game, that he had a dress rehearsal of the hunt the day before the Emperor arrived. Posting himself in the pass where the Emperor was to sit, he gave the signal to see if the different squads of beaters would start simultaneously. Everything went like clockwork; but long before the bear should have been moved, he came, The shot was so tempting that it was impossible to resist, and the bear fell dead almost before the magnitude of the crime was realised. The noble sportsman was in despair; but as only his own jager had seen the too successful shot, they determined to stop the beat, hide the carcase, and say nothing about it. The next day the Emperor arrived, and was conducted to a post a little lower down the pass. The beat went on as arranged, but nothing but deer came by, which were allowed to pass unscathed. Many apologies were made for the perversity of a bear which would not wait to be shot even by an Emperor, and after a drive for deer had been brought off in another valley the royal guest departed. But the headkeeper, who knew that if his stops had done their duty the bear could not have disappeared without leaving some traces, and disgusted at the failure, searched with his dog until he found the concealed body. After a year or two the story leaked out and came to the ears of the Emperor, who determined to have a joke at the expense of his host, At the next ​great Court Ball a large pie was prepared in which a small stuffed bearcub was put in a bed of moss and placed on the Emperor's table, at which the noble sportsman was invited to supper. When the covers were removed the amusement of the royal guests who were in the secret, and the dismay of the culprit, may be imagined; but it is said that he retired amidst roars of laughter and did not appear again at Court for a long time.
But everything comes to him who waits, and my lucky day came at last when, after this season's elk hunting in Namdalen, I was invited by a Norwegian landowner to visit him for a few days, in order to prospect some ground which he offered to let to me for the ensuing season. I took Elias with me, and after three days' hunting without success, which was mainly due to the carelessness of the local hunter who was sent to show us the ground, I determined on September 29th to go out alone with Elias to a valley where a good bull was reported, at some distance from the house. My host said that it was no use our going without his man as we should probably lose our way; to which I replied that, though Elias was a stranger to the district, I preferred to take my chance with him alone. After a three hours' walk, we at last reached the far end of the ground which we proposed to hunt* But the wind was so slight—nothing more than a gentle air from the west—that we hesitated to go into a large thick wood that we knew, from the signs we had seen the day before, was full of elk, Elias suggested trying some higher ground which, if not so certain to hold game, looked much more favourable to approach in on such a day. We made for the east end of a likely looking hill which we afterwards learned was known by the name of Trollfoss Klumpen, which, being interpreted, means Fairy Falls Hill. Crossing the river by an old timber floating dam, we cautiously skirted the edge of the open moor which bordered it, and before entering the birch and pine wood which covered the hill, came on some fresh-looking droppings of a bear, Elias, after turning it over, said quietly, "I think that is not very old;" but as the dog took no notice, we did not yet realise how fresh it really was, A little further on we found more, and began to quarter the ground in the hope of finding elk. The dog began to draw gently, as though he smelt something but did not know what, and for another half-hour we proceeded with the utmost caution, Now Finn was not like many elk-dogs who pull furiously while the game is yet afar off; but he had a good nose, nevertheless, and yet he did not seem at all sure. After a while his tail went down, and Elias, watching him carefully, whispered, "I think he smells wolf or bear."
We crept on yard by yard spying the ground in front of us with the utmost care, until we came to a large old pine tree on a narrow ridge overlooking a deep narrow ravine full of thick bushes, which separated us from the higher part of the hill. Under this pine was a lair which, it was plain to see, had not long been left by a bear, and Finn assumed an air of extreme interest, though his tail, which is usually curled tightly on his back, kept down. Elias also began to walk as if we had an elk within twenty yards, stopping to listen at every few paces. After passing the lair we saw that the dog kept looking intently into the ravine, and when ​an elk-dog stares instead of smelling you know the game is near. However, we could neither see nor hear anything, and no tracks were visible. Elias, as usual when very near game, was apparently lost in deep thought, though every sense was, like mine, acutely on the watch. In a whisper he said, "I think we had better go back and get up the hill; he is not in front of us or the dog would smell him." We turned to retreat and, after a few steps, we both thought we heard a slight rustle in the thick bushes with which the hillside was covered. I cocked my rifle and stood ready. In two or three minutes I thought I heard the rustle again, and just then appeared a bit of brown skin on the hillside sixty yards off and above me. A momentary glimpse of something which I knew was not an elk just gave me time to get in a quick though steady shot, which was followed by a loud growl and nothing more. After slipping another cartridge into my favourite old Henry, which I first loaded for a Greek brigand twenty-nine years before, we cautiously approached the place upwind, as Elias said, "If he is not dead we must not let him know what has hurt him."
As we approached the place, Finn's interest in the affair seemed to diminish as ours increased, and he rather kept to heel than in front. Nothing could be seen except where the bear had apparently rolled over once; but in a little while we found blood, and Elias rubbed Finn's nose in it to encourage him. At first he did not seem to want any bears, but after a while he got more confidence and, until we came to where the bear had started an elk, followed the trail, which every now and then showed a few drops of blood. As soon as he winded the elk tracks, however, his tail went up and we guessed at once that he had changed. Then for about half an hour I had to depend on Elias's native skill in tracking, as the dog wanted to follow the elk, and the ground covered with heather showed the tracks only at intervals. Then we came to where the bear had stopped and bled, and Finn again took the scent. Elias now said he was sure that the bear had not seen or smelt us, and that he thought from the tracks that a leg was injured, but that he might go very far before he stopped. The trail kept going uphill, and through thickets of dwarf willow which were very difficult to get through without pulling the dog off the scent. Whenever we approached a place which looked likely for the bear to stop in, Elias insisted on leaving the tracks and going down-wind of the place, as he said that, in following a bear which is not badly wounded, all depends on his not knowing that he is followed. This made our progress rather slow, and after about two hours, during which our direction was always straight away from home, I called a halt to have a mouthful of food. As I began to eat my lunch, Elias said quietly, u Do not eat it all now; I think you will be more hungry tonight." I got out the map, and saw that in the direction we were going there was no inhabited farm nearer than about twelve miles off, and as we were already more than that from our starting-point, I concluded that if we did not come up with the bear soon, we should have to sleep in an empty saeter or perhaps bivouac under a tree. After ten minutes' halt we went on again, sometimes through marshy strips where the track showed plainly in the long grass, and sometimes through willow scrub where ryper kept getting ​up, and at last got up on to a bare fjeld leading up to higher mountains which had already got a slight sprinkling of snow.
I now got out my telescope and had a good look at the ground in front. Whilst doing so, Elias, who had gone a little way off, came running up. "I have seen him, I think we shall get him now," was all he said, and, running down the other side of the ridge with him, I was just in time to see the bear about half a mile off, going slowly down a gully back to the upper edge of the forest from which he had come. We had to go round to avoid a precipice, and when we got down, Elias would not go to the place where we had seen him, but came below and down-wind of it, explaining to me that from the way the bear had turned, and the slow pace at which he went, he was certain he would stop soon; and that we must be sure and see him, if possible, before he saw us. Soon the dog began to smell before him, and we went on very slowly and cautiously in the forest, which was full of rocky ridges and very difficult ground. As we approached a low overhanging cliff with big boulders and bushes at the foot of it, Elias said quietly, "If he wants to stop, that is a likely place." We examined every yard with the glasses before going on. I could see nothing, but Elias said, "Do you see that tuft of grass, it is not moving with the wind like the other grass, it goes backwards and forwards. I think the bear is there, and that is his breath." So we went on till I got about twenty yards off, but could still see nothing. Elias then threw a stone, and the bear growled but did not show. So I sent him to get above the cave in the mouth of which the bear seemed to be lying, and see if he could roll a stone on to him to bolt him. As he went, he took out the little hatchet which he carries in his rucksack to cut up elk with, saying quietly, "It is well to have the axe ready when a bear is near." I saw that, in case I did not kill the bear, he was quite ready to help me. Stones were rolled down, but the bear would not move; so I walked up to within three yards of the cave with my rifle ready, and at last saw the tip of his nose. When I spoke the bear growled, and as he opened his mouth I fired into it, and with a few struggles all was over. After a hearty shake of the hand with my dear little man, to whose experience alone I felt sure I owed my success, we pulled the carcase out and found a full-grown she-bear in beautiful condition, with a very good skin and no signs of having had cubs this year.
Elias opened the carcase and took out the gall, which he said was considered a very good medicine amongst the Lapps, and, after cleaning the inside, we propped it on its back with sticks to cool, as I intended to send a sledge to fetch the body next day. I found that my first shot had struck her high up in the haunch, and crippled her so that she could not travel fast, though she had gone at least six miles, and would no doubt have gone much further if she had seen us. It was then past three o'clock, and we started to make the best of our way home, which we reckoned was about twelve miles off as the crow flies, with a big lake to cross, or else a long way to go round. Luckily we took a good line through the forest and reached the lake just before dark, where I kept firing shots until a man came with a boat to fetch us across.
It was long after dark when I reached my friend's house. He thought ​that we had lost our way, and would hardly believe I had got a bear, as no one had ever seen one on the place since he had had it. Next day Elias went up early with a sledge and brought the bear down to the road, and arrived at Stenkjaer about 10 p.m. in triumph, to claim the Government reward of sixty kroner from the Lensmand. Now by the law of Norway this cannot be paid until two claws are cut oft, and the Lensmand thought he would get off paying as I should not like to spoil the skin; but Elias was not going to lose his money, and showed me how to take the claws out by the roots so that when they are put in again there is no sign of injury. It appeared that the only other beat which had been brought to Stenkjaer of late years was shot by a German who had been eight years trying to get one, and when he got it he would not allow the claws to be touched. The Lensmand thought he would play the same game with me.
When we weighed the bear two days after its death at Trondhjem, it was 116 kilos without the inside, which they reckoned would make it about 300 pounds in all. This seems to be above the average weight of a she-bear in Norway, and I am told that 400 pounds is considered the full weight of a large he-bear in Scandinavia. This bear was beautifully stuffed for me by Herr Brunn, the well-known furrier of Trondhjem, and is now in my hall in exactly the same position as the first bear I saw stood in.
Elias sold the meat at a good price and one of the hams was cured and smoked in Trondhjem, but when I had it cooked in the winter it was found that the salt had been insufficient and it was unfit to eat.
I always look back on this hunt as the most skilful and interesting of all that I ever took part in, except the elk hunt which I had at Mo. Elephant and tiger hunting may be more exciting, as they are more dangerous, but a really clever Norwegian elk-hound, with a man who has the brains and experience of Elias, beats deer-stalking, and even chamois hunting, hollow.
* ↑ Ryper (norsk) = Lagopus (Wikisource-ed.)
* ↑ A saeter is a wooden hut where hay is stored and cattle are taken to graze for a few weeks in summer.