Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-11-28
GAME IN ALASKA.
MOnstrOus Bears and Clouds Of
Salm on-Sam mpling the Meat.

sAlm mOn-Sampl1nE the Meat.
Arriving at the camp on Icy Bay We
found things generally about as we had
expected. 1t had rained, however, a
great deal at this camp in the way Of
constant light showers, although we had
not had single shower on the way in.
land, the equivalent being fogs and
clouds in the upper strata of the atmos-
phere. Dalton, the keeper of the
camp, during our absence, had sue
ceeded in killing two Alaskan "grizzly"
bears, or brown bears. as l think they
are more properly called, being the
Northern variety of the cinnamon"
bear, SO called, of the Rocky Mountains,
the two being mother and her cub.
He had also wounded another, huge
fellow, which managed to escape into
the timber, where Dalton had too much
good "bear" sense to follow it. He be-
lieved, however, that he had fatally
wounded it, but it being too dark in the
deep, gloomy forest to go in and ex.
anime the wounds carefully to ascertain
whether they were fatal or not, the in.
vestigation was not prosecuted further.
The larger of the two ''grizzly" bears he
killed was huge beast, and must have
been some eight feet il length, although
no measurements were taken, the skin
being " orthless as robe at that season
of the year. and consequently having
been thrown away before our return.
The meat of the mother was, to put it
mildly, very "gamy" in favor, and, as
Dalton was alone, and the bear cub
meat was ever so much better, the
former was only Sampled" with the
conclusion to let it alone. We had some
of the latter upon our return, and it Ger.
tainly was not bad eating, at least after
our long absence from fresh meat.
The bear at this season lives in whole
or in part on salmon and seal, and as the
latter lives on fish, too, Mr.. and Mrs.
Bruin directly and indirectly live great
deal on the product of the sea and riv.
ers, with consequent effect of not add.
ing to the flavor of their meat, as Judged
from the standpoint of the average hu-
man palate. The Alaskan brown bear,
however, in living on seal will not, as
far as l can ascertain, rsrtake of the
putrid remains Of that animal, as does
the polar bear, to my certain knowl.
edge, and therefore never has the wild,
racy originality in flavor of the the lat.
ter, which has occasioned so much com.
ment among Arctic travellers as to the
palatability of polar bear meat, and
which really depends on whether they
have caught the Northern bear favored
in this way or not. The brown bear
catches its seal ON the beach, but never
above high tide, and if the entire pho.
cidian is not devoured at one meal it is
washed away by the tide on the next,
or so covered with sand as to be buried
out of sight. The polar bear, on the
contrary, catches its seal on the ice,
often Staying numbers at time, if they
are thick. aud leaving their bodies to
'mellow.. in the sun for its depraved
appetite.
l have also said that the Alaskan
brown bear lives to no small extent on
salmon, which they find ascending the
rivers in spawn in the spring and sum-
mer, and as many of these fish die in
the ascent and are thrown upon the
banks of the river to rot and decay, this
does not tend to improve the meat OF
the bear any more than did the seal.
These salmon swarm in some of the
Alaskan rivers, and canoe going up or
down some of the smaller shallow
streams have ripping semi-circle in
front of them, about twenty or thirty
feet distant, that looks like a small
rapid in the course of the stream, being
curve of salmon just below the waters
surface, trying to escape from the COM
ing boat. Even on the Jones river, some
ten or twelve miles from its mouth, Mr..
Seton-K arr found a small salmon thrown
on the bank not far from Camp No. 2.
never for moment dreamed that any
fish would attempt to ascend such a
swift, muddy river of ice-water. and
even yet believe that the cases n.ust be
rare indeed, as we found no others
Frederick Schwatka,