14 Arctic Adventure (12 page)

The boys continued their walk. They were hungry, having had very little to eat on the brig. They found a small restaurant and went in. Of course there was a bear in the restaurant and everybody seemed to think this was quite proper. Bears had the right of way. A waiter served the bear a chunk of meat and demanded no payment.

The bear ate, and then, as if wishing to entertain the diners, he stood up on his hind feet. He was so tall that his head bumped the ceiling. This did not please him, and he growled. He came down on all four feet and walked out, shaking his head. Why couldn’t people make their ceilings high enough so a bear could stand up? He didn’t think much of people.

After lunch the boys took to the street again. They saw a bear at a window. He was not looking in the window. He was inside, looking out. This surprised the boys, but no one else looked twice. On one door they saw a sign, ‘Club Members Only’. A bear tried to push his way in. A guard just inside yelled, ‘You’re-not a member. Get out of here.’ The bear walked away.

It happened to be Sunday and a church service was going on. A bear walked in. He proceeded solemnly up the aisle to the altar. The boys, looking in, saw one man who knew how to get rid of a bear. The organist produced such a terrific burst of music that the bear stopped in his tracks, trying to decide whether to eat the organist or escape from this terrible noise. The organist didn’t look too tasty, so the visitor turned about and left.

Some people used firecrackers to frighten away a bear that became too inquisitive. One bear, terrified by the explosion within a few inches of his nose, took refuge in a bus. The boys saw their big chance. They closed the door of the bus. There were no people inside.

There was a driver in front protected by a heavy glass partition between himself and the rest of the bus. Hal spoke to him.

‘Do you own this bus?’

‘I do.’

‘Have you ever been to Long Island, just outside New York?’

‘I used to live in New York.’

‘We want this bear for a zoo. The Mountie says we can have it. We’ll pay you a hundred dollars if you’ll take this bear to Long Island and deliver it to the Hunt Wild Animal Farm. If you don’t know where it is, anybody there can tell you.’

‘Make it two hundred and I’ll do it,’ said the bus owner. ‘In advance.’

‘Two hundred it is, but not in advance. How do we know you will really go through with it? I’ll wire my father, John Hunt, who owns the farm, to pay you two hundred dollars upon arrival.’

‘That’s fair enough,’ said the bus owner, and he no time in getting under way.

Hal sent this telegram to his father:

ONE THOUSAND-POUND POLAR BEAR COMING TO YOU BY BUS. UPON ARRIVAL PLEASE PAY DRIVER TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS PLUS FIFTY DOLLAR TIP IF THE BEAR IS ALIVE AND IN GOOD CONDITION.

They spent the night in the small hotel and then flew back to Greenland, having no desire for another battle with the icebergs of Melville Bay.

They embraced their own Nanook, and were thankful that it was not this dear friend that they were forced to part with.

‘We’ll stick by you,’ Hal said, ‘as long as you want to stick by us.’

‘Why are you leaving Greenland?” Olrik complained. ‘Don’t you like it here?’

‘Of course we like it,’ Hal said. ‘But we have done about all we can here. We have taken many animals and they have all been shipped home. Dad told us before we started this trip to go on to Alaska when we were finished here.’

‘What could you expect to find in Alaska that we don’t have in Greenland?’

‘Well the Arctic moose, for example, the largest moose in the world. And the fighting fur seal, the sea lion, the sea otter and some kinds of whales that don’t come into these waters. And the blue bear, the black bear, the grizzly. And the magnificent bighorn sheep. And, most important of all, the giant Kodiak bear, the greatest bear on earth.’

‘That sounds wonderful,’ Olrik admitted. ‘But we sure will miss you.’

‘We’ll miss you a lot,’ said Hal. ‘You have been our best friend in Greenland. You lent us your fine dog team. You went with us on the ice cap and did everything in your power to help us. When we caught the walrus and the killer whale and the narwhal and the giant cuttle, you were right there on the shore truck and drag ready to take them to the airport. We would have had a hard time getting along without you.’

‘Shucks,’ said Olrik. ‘I just enjoyed tagging along.’

‘Will you tag along with us now? There’s something in Thule I want to show you.’

In the town Hal stopped before a brand new house. Hal had hired workmen to build it and they had done a good job. It wouldn’t be called a house in New York, but it was a house, and a good house, compared with an igloo or tent.

The walls were made of rocks fitted together and any cracks between them were filled with mud. The mud had frozen and would stay frozen in this land so close to the North Pole, where the temperature almost never rose above the freezing point. The flat roof was a criss-cross of bones from the skeletons of whales, covered by sod six inches thick. In the sod wildflowers were already blooming.

‘A very good house,’ said Olrik. ‘Whose is it?’

‘It’s yours, you numskull —for you and your family.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Olrik. ‘My folks will love it. Every year we’ve had to rebuild our igloo. A solid rock house with a whalebone roof will never have to be rebuilt. Of course we’ll pay for it —a little each year until it’s all paid for.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Hal. ‘You have already more than paid for it by all the things you have done for us.

Hal and Roger went to see Aram, who had flown them to the North Pole. Aram was still on crutches, and would perhaps stay on crutches the rest of his life. He refused payment for the North Pole trip. His father would not take anything. His mother said, ‘The spirits of all our ancestors fill this room. So long as we do good deeds they will not harm us. What we have done for you is very little and you will please forget it.’

Hal respected the old woman’s fear of the spirits and left no money. He went to the doctor at the air base. He ordered and paid for a peg leg for Aram so that this brave young man would not have to go all the rest of his days on crutches.

Special attention had to be paid to Nanook. They were determined that he should be with them in Alaska. There was regular air service to Alaska by cargo plane, but Hal had difficulty in convincing the authorities that a 1,000-pound polar bear should be considered as cargo.

‘You say he is tame,’ said the pilot. ‘But perhaps he is just tame while you are around. He has never been in a plane before. I’m not going to make a flight to Alaska with a possible killer behind my back. I’ll take him only on one condition — that you two go along with him in the cargo compartment.’

‘We were planning to go in a comfortable passenger plane,’ said Hal. ‘We wouldn’t enjoy very much going along with the boxes and bales in the cargo room. But if we have to we will do it.’

‘Where do you want to be landed —at Fairbanks, or Anchorage?’ said the pilot.

‘No,’ said Hal. ‘Those are too far south. We want to set up our camp at Point Barrow first.’ that’s the wildest part of Alaska. Point Barrow extends into the Arctic Ocean. It’s only thirteen hundred miles from the North Pole. It’s the most northern part of Alaska —the most northern part of the entire United States.’

‘Just what we want,’ said Hal. ‘Our job there is to find Arctic sea animals. What better place to find them than the Arctic Ocean side of Alaska? Is there an airfield at Point Barrow?’

‘Yes, we go there almost every day. Flying over the top of the world, it takes only five hours.’

‘You mean you go over the North Pole?’

‘Very close to it. Just a little to the left. It’s the shortest way. We land at Point Barrow —then we go on south to the cities. You ought to go to Anchorage. It’s on the southern edge and not as cold as everywhere else. It’s a fine city. You’d like it.’

‘I’m sure we would,’ said Hal. ‘But this is not a pleasure trip. For one thing, we want to go to the Brooks Range near Point Barrow.’

‘The Brooks Range! Why, those mountains are eight thousand feet high. You’ll freeze to death.’

‘Yes,’ said Hal, ‘sometimes nine thousand. But if the animals can stand it, we can.’

Nanook did not show the least fear in this strange house in the sky so long as the boys were with him. It was a thrill to know that they were passing so near the very top of the world. After only five hours they came down on the airfield at Point Barrow.

The two boys and Nanook walked down to the little village of Barrow. Here they got food, rested overnight in a little lodging house, and set out early in search of anything they could find.

The boys and Nanook stood on the beach. Behind them was Barrow village. Before them was the Arctic Ocean.

Not far out was a dark lump.

‘What can that be?’ Roger wondered.

The dark lump put up a long neck and a head that carried a pair of very bright eyes and long whiskers.

‘It’s a sea otter,’ exclaimed Hal. ‘Look at the size of it. It’s twice as big as the otters we’ve seen down south. I’d say it’s about seven feet long. That’s the first animal we’re going to get in Alaska.’

Nanook was interested. Ke was growling softly. Did he think that this was going to be his dinner?

‘What’s so great about a sea otter?’ Roger asked.

‘One thing is that it loves fun more than almost any other animal. Life is just one round of games for the sea otter. Then it has the finest and most expensive of the world’s furs. It’s coming closer. See how well dressed it is.’

The otter’s coat was brown with a big orange spot like a headlight under the neck, and beautiful glints of gold and silver on its sides.

Hal said, ‘Women used to pay 2,500 dollars for one skin, and it took several skins to make a coat.’

‘You say ‘used to’,’ said Roger. ‘Don’t they still?’

‘No more,’ said Hal, ‘unless they want to go to prison. So many used to be killed that the sea otters almost disappeared altogether. So a law was passed to put a stop to the killing, and now there are millions of sea otters here and in the Pribilof Islands near Alaska.’

The otter was going through all sorts of acrobatics. It was having a very good time. It leaped up four or five feet, then turned and dived straight down. It came up again with a rock oyster held in one flipper that was bent like a hand. The other flipper held two stones.

The animal lay on its back and placed one stone on its chest. It put the oyster on that stone. Then it brought the other stone down with its full strength and broke the shell into fragments. Then it ate the oyster.

Roger stared. ‘I never saw anything like that in my life. Did somebody train it to do that?’

‘No,’ said Hal. ‘All the otters do it. It gives you some idea of their intelligence.’

‘Is the otter like a fish? Can it stay down under water if it wants to?’

Hal said, ‘It’s just like you. It has to come up for air. The only difference is that it does much better than you or I could. Without a scuba we could stay down no more than three minutes. The otter can remain under water for ten minutes.’

‘In the winter, when the water is frozen over, what does it do?’

‘It comes out on land before the water freezes. It’s too smart to stay under the ice and be drowned. It may waddle across country to some lake that has no ice over it because there is a hot spring at the bottom. Or it may decide to stay home.’

‘What do you mean, home?’

‘Its home may be right here among these bushes. It digs a tunnel, about thirty feet long, and lines it with leaves, grass, and moss so that it will be comfortable.’

‘Then you can trap it by closing the front door.’

‘No, there’s a back door also, deep in the bushes.’

‘By jiminy,’ said Roger, ‘it thinks of everything. Has anybody been able to tame it?’

‘Yes,’ said Hal, ‘I have read that in India and China it is trained to catch fish for its master, or drive the fish into the net. If it likes you it can become very affectionate. But you have to keep away from those sharp teeth. If you annoy it it may give you a very bad bite. But you would have no trouble. All animals seem to like you.’

Now the otter was afloat on its back, sound asleep.

‘Look,’ said Roger. ‘Something is crawling up on its chest.’

‘It’s a baby otter,’ said Hal. ‘The big one must be its mother.’

The mother otter woke and nursed her young one. She cleaned the pup with her teeth and her tongue. Just for the fun of it she tossed the pup into the air and caught him again on her chest. The little one squealed for joy.

The mother had several ways of speaking. She could squeal, she could bark, she could growl.

A shark was prowling about. The mother otter tucked her young one under her arm and dived. When she came up she hugged the shore and put her baby up on the beach out of reach of the shark.

Roger began talking to the mother in the quiet way he always used when speaking to animals. The intelligent animal decided she was safer on the shore with these humans and a bear rather than in the water at the mercy of a hungry shark.

She joined her pup on the beach.

Hal-said, ‘Take the pup in your arms> Roger. Then we’ll walk slowly toward the airport. I’m sure the mother will follow wherever we take her pup.’

And so it was that the best dressed of all the mammals was the first to be captured by the take-‘emalive men in Alaska.

Here, as in Greenland, there were cargo planes available and one was made the home of the mother and youngster, to be joined by other animals before the flight to Long Island.

Why is everything so large in Alaska? Alaska itself is the giant of the fifty American states. Texas is an enormous state—but Alaska is twice as large as Texas. It would take three Californias to make an Alaska. Mount McKinley is North America’s highest mountain at 20,320 feet. Alaska actually has sixteen mountains higher than any in the lower forty-eight states!