The Land of the Long Night Part 16

After a while we began to work, and built two little round enclosures of snow, the walls about three feet high, with openings here and there to fire from, and went inside and waited for the foxes, having previously put within a short shooting distance some reindeer meat. We waited for quite a while--no foxes--when suddenly I thought I saw something moving over the snow. Looking carefully I found that they were white foxes.

They had evidently scented the meat and were approaching in that direction, and when within shooting distance we fired and two of them fell. They were fine creatures, with soft long hair almost as white as the snow upon which they walked. We skinned them at once, and stretched their skins on frames we made from branches of juniper.

The next day we built two new snow entrenchments, in the opposite direction to the others, and when it was dark we went into them, putting reindeer meat near.

We had not to wait long. I saw something black on the snow. Certainly the animal was not a white fox. It could not be the cub of a bear, for it was the Bear's Night and they were all asleep. When the animal was near enough I fired and it fell. I ran towards it, and saw that it was a splendid silver-gray fox. How carefully we skinned the animal!

The next day Jakob made a lot of traps for ermines. These traps are made in the following manner: A string is attached to a loop long enough for the head of the animal to pa.s.s through. The string is fastened to a branch, which is bent down above the place where meat is deposited, some distance back of the loop. The ermine approaches, and in trying to reach the meat pushes his head through the loop and pulls the string up, and the loop tightens round the neck and strangles the animal in the air.

We scattered these traps in every direction, and caught many ermines.

How pretty is the ermine, with its short legs, white fur, and tail tipped with black! The ermine feeds much on the ptarmigans.

That day I saw perched on the low branch of a tree a beautiful snowy owl, motionless, evidently watching for something. Jakob said to me, "The owl is watching for ermines. There are plenty of these, I am sure, round here, or the owl would not be on this tree. We will set some of our traps here." The owl was big and beautiful, and I said to myself, "The ermine feeds on the ptarmigans, and the owl on the ermine." I did not like the idea of the harmless ptarmigans being eaten by ermines and owls, so I raised my gun and knocked him over.

The foxes, after being hunted for two or three days, became very shy and it was impossible to get near them. There were a great number of ptarmigans, and they were so tame that we had no difficulty in getting many for food.

Strange to say, when we fired our guns they made hardly any noise, for the air was so rarefied. We feasted well at our camp, for we also killed a number of white hares.

The white fox had become so scarce that we concluded to leave our camp for good, and Jakob went to get our reindeer. After packing we retraced our steps towards his home, his tent on the snow.

In one place where we stopped to rest I suddenly noticed that our reindeer had got loose. I shouted to Jakob, who was quietly taking a little snooze on the snow, "Our reindeer are loose!"

Without saying a word, he went to his sleigh and took a la.s.so. The Lapps never travel without a la.s.so. This rea.s.sured me. "I must be very wary, for our reindeer are somewhat wild," Jakob said; "Paulus, follow me." So I took to my skees. As we approached the animals moved off from us. Then he came near enough to one of them, and threw his la.s.so and caught him.

After making the animal fast, he went carefully after the others and succeeded in la.s.soing them.

"Well done," I said to him. Then we lay on the snow, with our masks to protect our faces, and went to sleep. After a short nap we continued our way, and finally reached Jakob's tent just in time for supper, and were warmly welcomed by the family.

CHAPTER XXIII

JAKOB TALKS TO ME ABOUT BEARS.--THE BEAR'S NIGHT.--WATCHING A BEAR SEEKING FOR WINTER QUARTERS.--THEY ARE VERY SUSPICIOUS.--I TELL A BEAR STORY IN MY TURN.

Since I had heard of the Bear's Night, I wanted to know more about these animals and their habits. After our supper, I said to Jakob, "Talk about bears to me--tell me about them." "All right," he replied. "I will tell you all I know about them."

"At the end of the summer and before the first fall of snow," he began, "the bears are very fat, for they have had plenty of berries and roots to eat. They are so fat that they can stand the long fast during the Bear's Night; but when they go out in the spring from their snow cover, they are very lean. We dread the bear more in the spring than during any part of the summer, for he is voraciously hungry all the time and goes after cattle, horses, sheep, or reindeer."

"I do not wonder at their being hungry, for the poor bear has to make up for his long fast," I said.

Jakob continued: "The bear chooses a place in which he can lie comfortably, such as under boulders or fallen trees, where he can be protected from the snow. He becomes suspicious after he has chosen the place for his Winter's Night, and for days he walks round and round to see that there is no danger and to make sure that no enemy can see him.

He wants to feel perfectly safe before he goes into winter quarters. By walking round wherever the wind blows, he is sure to scent danger, and if he does he moves away and goes to seek some other place. The bear is very wary; it is almost impossible in summer to pursue him without dogs, for he is so quick of foot and always on the alert, that when a hunter sees one he has to be more wary than the bear to approach within shooting distance of him. When badly wounded he attacks his enemy suddenly."

After Jakob had done speaking, I said to him, in my turn: "Let me tell you a bear story. One autumn day when I had crossed the mountains by the great Sulitelma glacier and was descending the eastern slope on my way to the Gulf of Bothnia, my Lapp guide and I saw a big brown bear in the distance, but as it was almost dark we decided not to go after him, for the country was very stony. We camped that day in a forest of pines, in order to be sheltered from the wind, for we were to sleep without a fire so as not to make the bear suspicious. After taking our frugal meal of hard bread and b.u.t.ter, my Lapp said to me, 'To-morrow we shall see the bear; it is late in the season, and I am sure that he is looking for his winter quarters in the neighborhood, and at the first indication of a big snowstorm he will make ready for his long sleep, for the bears know when a snowstorm is coming.'

"'How can they know?' I inquired.

"'I cannot tell you, for I do not know,' he replied, 'for I am not a bear; but they do know. Do not the swallows and other migrating birds know the approach of winter and then fly southward?'

"'They do,' I replied.

"That day we were very tired, for we had been tramping all day, down and up hills and leaping over boulders which covered the country in many places, and the wonder to me was that we did not break our necks.

"The place we had chosen for the night was by a big boulder almost as large as a small house. There we could be sheltered against the cold wind of the night that came through the trees. I picked out a stone for a pillow, then stretched myself by the side of the boulder on thick lichen that grew over the barren soil, and made a comfortable bed. My guide did likewise. Then we bade each other good-night and soon fell asleep.

"The next morning we wandered in the neighborhood where we had seen the bear, but that day we did not find him; then we moved in the direction whither we thought he had gone. That evening we saw another boulder some twelve or fifteen feet high. 'This will be a fine place of shelter for the night,' I said to the Lapp. He replied, 'It is just the place we want. If the wind s.h.i.+fts we will s.h.i.+ft also, so as to be protected.'

"I lay flat along the boulder on the thick reindeer moss, the Lapp did likewise, and soon after we fell asleep with the pure bracing wind of the mountains blowing over our faces.

"The next morning we saw the bear; he was a long way from us. The Lapp said to me, 'I think the bear expects to winter round here; we must watch him and follow him.' Soon after the bear disappeared.

"'Do you think he has scented us?' I asked. 'I do not see how he could,'

my guide replied, 'the wind is in the wrong direction for that. He has gone for some reason of his own, you may be sure. There may have been people on the other side of the hill and he has scented them.'

"We moved all round our boulder to scan the country, but there was no bear in sight as far as our eyes could reach. After a while I noticed a small black spot on the top of a hill. It was the bear; he was looking all round. He then walked away and disappeared. Soon he appeared again, and we saw him walk round and round a cl.u.s.ter of pines. The Lapp said: 'The bear is walking, making a ring in that manner. He tries to find out if there is any danger for him, and by walking round he is sure to get the wind, no matter from what direction it comes. Sometimes the bear will try a number of places for several days before he selects one.'

"'How clever the bears are to walk around in that manner,' I said.

"Suddenly the bear disappeared. 'He has scented us,' said the Lapp, 'and I think he will never come back here. We have eaten all the food we have with us. We shall have to feed on berries the rest of our way. This bear will probably remain in this region and take up his winter quarters around here somewhere. I will find out where he will lie. Come to me early in the spring, before the snow melts, and we will kill him.'

"'All right,' I replied; but the following spring, I regret to say, I was travelling in another part of the country, but I heard that Bruin met his fate at the hands of my Lapp when he aroused himself from his long sleep and came out from under the snow."

The bears in Sweden, Norway, and Finland are very fine animals and attain great size. They vary in the color of their fur, some being almost black, but generally they are of different shades of brown. I think they rank in size next to the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains.

They are sometimes dangerous, but not so much so as the grizzly.

CHAPTER XXIV

PREPARATIONS FOR CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS TO THE ARCTIC OCEAN.--DECIDE TO TAKE THE TRAIL TO THE ULF FJORD.--HOUSES OF REFUGE.--A SERIES OF TERRIFIC WINDSTORMS IN THE MOUNTAINS.--LOST.--GLOOMY REFLECTIONS.--A HAPPY REUNION.

The next day I said to Jakob and to the Lapps, "I wish some of you to go with me across the mountains to the sh.o.r.e of the Arctic Ocean. I will pay you well."

We were then between the 69th and 70th degrees, north lat.i.tude, and we had to cross the mountains at an elevation of about 5,000 feet on our way to the sea. I wanted to find out the kind of weather they had in these high alt.i.tudes in the Arctic regions.

"Some of us will go with you," they replied; and added: "There are several trails leading to the Arctic Ocean. We can reach the sea by going to the Ofoden, the Ulf, the Lyngen, the Quananger, or the Alten fjords." I took my map out. After a conference it was agreed that we should go to the Ulf fjord.

Norway is the country of fjords. A fjord is an arm of the sea, winding its way far inland in the midst of mountains. The sea is very deep, often of greater depth than the towering heights which rise abruptly from the sh.o.r.e, though these are often several thousand feet in alt.i.tude. No road can be built along many of these fjords, and boats are the conveyances that are used to go from one place to another.

"There are houses of refuge in the mountains, where we shall find shelter in case of heavy storms," said the Lapps. "If it were not for those places of refuge people would often perish when overtaken by these storms. Paulus, you have met great windstorms on your way here, but they are nothing to compare with the terrific winds to be met in the high mountains. Remember that we are in the month of March--the month of storms."

As I was listening to what the Lapps said, I thought I heard, from across the Atlantic, my young folks and friends encouraging me, crying: "Be not afraid, Paul. Go on! Go on! No harm will befall you!" I shouted back, "I am not afraid!"

So we started. First we came to a Finn hamlet, where we met a good many Finlanders and Laplanders who had arrived with their goods and a great many sleighs and reindeer on their way to the Ulf fjord. All the animals had been trained to eat reindeer moss gathered and stored for that purpose. We had come just in time.

Here it was agreed that Jakob and the Lapps who had taken me to this place should not go further, but that I should be taken care of by Finlanders, whose destination was the same as mine and who were on their way to the Arctic Sea. I was to go with John Puranen. John was a powerfully built man, with a very kind expression.