The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-11-29
LOOKING FOR A CLEAR HIGHWAY.
Adventcees with Sea, Bears, Glaciers and
bws and Experiences of . Fortnight.
The Worst leo Year In tho spitzbergen
Region.
copyright, 1894. by Walter Wellman. AL
rights reserved

We are not finding any Improvement In
the road. In fact, the surface gets worse
and worse as we advance, and our expert
enced Norwegians say they never saw such
an unfavorable ice year in the Spitzbergen
region. The story of the past fortnight's
labors and adventures will be found in the
following extracts from our daily journal:
The Fat Of the Land.
JUNE 1O.-Again we are reveling in bear
meat, and young, delicious bear at that.
Last evening we saw a cub approaching
camp, his keen nostrils having been at
tracted, no doubt, by the SAVIOR of our
soup. Now and then he sat down upon
his launches, lifting his nose as high in
the air as he could get it and moving his
head to and fro to get the scent Occa-
sionally he shifted danger and retreated at
a rapid gait, but our hunters knew better
than to pursue and frighten him. They
simply hid themselves behind big pieces Of
ice, confident that bruins fatal curiosity
would master his fears and induce him to
advance nearer and nearer to them. Such
proved to be the case, and in q short time
he came within gunshot and met the usual
fate of bear who indulge too much curios-
ity as to the cause Of the odors which they
detect in the vicinity Of our camp cookery.
After breakfast half of our party walked
ashore, three or four miles distant, after
game and driftwood. We saw plenty of
traces of reindeer and much moss, but
no reins. We killed a number of elder
ducks, however, the birds sitting quietly
on the cliffs to be killed, and as soon as
three or four had fallen others accommo-
datingly took their places.
Plenty of driftwood from the Siberian
rivers was found on the gravel beach, 1t
was interesting to watch our men split up
the logs, Norwegian workmen, with an
American ak, working Siberian trees up
into flrewood Besides the ak the men
used small stones for wedges, and also a
piece of rein's antler, which proved in
credibly tough and useful for the purpose.
After seven mile walk, part of it through
deep snow and rough ice, with parts Of
logs of wood upon their shoulders, it may
easily be imagined that the men had appe-
tites fit to cope with the two large buckets
of bear soup which awaited us on our ar
rival at camp, with some delicious steaks
for the officers.
For supper we enjoyed duck soup,
which proved very good. With bear and
duck in our pot we are realizing the truth
of Captain Pedersen's remark that "you
can always live in the arctics if you have
a gum Not only did we enjoy bear
steaks, bear brains and duck soup, but the
birds themselves, after the broth had been
drawn off, proved most delicious, fully as
good as canvasback at IS per pair, and
we were SO glad to get them that no re-
grets for the absence of the customary cold
bottle troubled our minds as we sat under
the awnings and picked the bones.
JUNE 11.--During the night we had all
of our young and delicious bear boiled up
by the watch to take with us in case we
move today. AS luck would have it, just
as this bear disappeared in the pot another
one walked up to camp impelled by that
fatal curiosity which all ice bear appear to
possess, and was promptly shot for his
pains. He was big fellow and not as
good eating as the other one. The young
bear was just right, both for steaks and
stew. There is no need of going hungry
in this country, for two more bear were
seen near camp just after breakfast, and
having more meat than we can eat and
carry with us we did not even take the
trouble to go after them. At 8 this
morning we gave orders to move at
O'Clock for the Outger Reps island, 13
miles away. Three men we're sent for
driftwood to cook our dinner with and to
prepare some more bear stew, while three
more were sent ahead to blaze out the
route and cut a road through the rough
places. This important work was put in
charge Of Professor French, who has fine
faculty for picking out the best roads
through rough ice. All hands seem glad
to get into action again. We may as we'll
be at work as to sit idle, waiting for the
favorable winds that may never come
1t was $50 in the afternoolD before we
started on our journey. The road was very
bad. The same ice that we had found COM
paratively smooth and good travelling
while on prospecting tour last evening
had been SO much screwed by pressure un-
der the strong northerly wind during the
night and forenoon that we could find
few traces of the road which the men had
cut in the morning. This shows the per-
versity of ice in the arctics You can never
tell what it is going to do, except that in
our case it would be pretty safe to predict
that it will always do what 1t is not want
ed to do. We struggled along till s o'clock,
and by that hour had made perhaps a mile
Of casting, with all hands working to the
limit of their strength. Then we camped
on foe which Captain Petersen warrant
ed safe from ice pressure and went to bed.
JUNE IA little after midnight we
were reused by the voice Of the watchman