photo by joel garlich-miller, us fish and wildlife service
the peary-macmillan arctic museum and arctic studies center, bowdoin college
and the men shed layers of clothes as they tow the heavy animals back to the ship. After hoisting the carcasses aboard and into the hold, Henson leads the crew back out, this time with a larger whaleboat and more oarsmen. They kill four more walruses. Over the following days, as they continue to hunt and allocate the meat in different ways, using every part of the animal in some fashion, Henson takes particular care with two of the walrus skins, which he has been asked to prepare to send home to be stuffed and mounted, presumably for museums.
The Roosevelt continues north. They spend a long winter at their camp at the far northern edge of land, braving temperatures of -50˚ F and constant darkness, their dogs surviving on the walrus meat. As the winter eases, the men and dogs begin their trek across the frozen Arctic Sea, bound for the Pole. It is a risky mission. En route they have to sledge across the ice and dangerous leads of open water to reach the spot Peary calculates to be the North Pole, arguably the first people to ever do so. In his book about his experiences, Negro Explorer at the North Pole, Matthew Henson included several intriguing observations about walruses, In addition to his skills as a hunter and sledge driver, Matthew Henson (above) was a master especially in relation to the dwindling carpenter who built and repaired many of the team’s sledges. The sledges had to hold up against tribe of Inuit people living at the far rough usage, carrying the expedition’s supplies across the ice on their way to and from the North northwest of Greenland. In the 1800s Pole. Here is Henson leaning against one of the sledges on the deck of SS Roosevelt. and early 1900s, American and European ships sailed to the region to hunt whales, seals, and walruses in great numbers. Although he and his shipmates killed at least seventy walrus themselves over the course of their trip, Henson reflected: “It is sad to think of the fate of my friends who live in what was once a land of plenty, but which is, through the greed of the commercial hunter, becoming a land of frigid desolation. The seals are practically gone, and the walrus are being quickly exterminated.” The hunting of walrus, called aaveq in the Inuktitut language, has been a significant and central part of Indigenous life for more than 2,000 years. Walruses are the largest of
SEA HISTORY 175, SUMMER 2021
Walrus cows and juveniles relaxing on the ice.
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