Note 22 — Chapter VII · Land at Last

It was not until September 2d that we could set to work on the skinning of our walrus, which still lay in the water. Close to our den there was an opening in the strand-ice,22 connecting the inner channel between the strand-ice and the land with the outer sea. It was in this opening that we had made it fast, and we hoped to be able to draw it on land here; the glacier-ice went with a gentle incline right out into the water, so that it seemed to promise well. We rounded off the edge of the ice, made a tackle by drawing the rope through a loop we cut in the skin of the head, used our broken-off runner of a sledge as a handspike at the end of the rope, and cut notches in the ice up the beach as a fulcrum for the handspike. But work and toil as we might, it was all we could do to get the huge head up over the edge of the ice. In the midst of this Johansen cried, “I say, look there!” I turned. A large walrus was swimming straight up the channel towards us. It did not seem to be in any hurry, but only opened wide its round eyes, and gazed in astonishment at us and at what we were doing. I suppose that, seeing a comrade, it had come in to see what we were doing with him. Quietly, slowly, and with dignity it came right up to the edge where we stood. Fortunately we had our guns with us, and when I approached with mine it only rose up in the water and gazed long and searchingly at me. I waited patiently until it turned a little, and then sent a bullet into the back of its head. It was stunned for a time, but soon began to move, so that more shots were required. While Johansen ran for cartridges and a harpoon I had to fight with it as I best could, and try to prevent it, with a stick, from splashing out of the channel again. At last Johansen returned, and I did for this walrus. We were delighted over our good fortune; but what the walrus wanted in that narrow channel we have always wondered. These animals must be uncommonly curious. While we were skinning the bears two days before, a walrus with its young one came close in to the edge of the ice and gazed at us; it dived several times, but always returned, and at last drew the whole of the forepart of its body up on to the ice in order to see better. This it did several times, and my approaching to within a few yards of it did not drive it away; it was only when I went up close to it with my gun that it suddenly came to its senses and threw itself backward into the water again, and we could see it far below moving off with its young one by its side.