"Sunday, April 19th. I was awakened at 7 o'clock this morning by the heavy steps of a bear outside. I wakened Johansen, who struck a light, and I got on my trousers and 'komager' and crept out with loaded gun. During the night a great deal of snow had, as usual, drifted over the skin that covered the opening, and was difficult to break through. At last, by kicking with all my might from below, I managed to knock the snow off, and put my head out into the daylight, which was quite dazzling after the darkness down in the hut. I saw nothing, but knew that the bear must be standing just behind the hut. Then I heard a snorting and blowing, and off went the brute in a clumsy bear's gallop up the slope. I did not know whether to shoot or not, and, to tell the truth, I had little inclination for bear-skinning in this bitter weather; but half at random I sent a shot after it, which of course missed, and I was not sorry. I did not shoot again; the one shot was enough to frighten it, and keep it from coming again for the present; we did not want it, if only it would leave our things in peace. At the cleft to the north it looked back, and then went on. As usual it had come against the wind, and must have scented us far west upon the ice. It had made several tacks to leeward to us, had been at the entrance of the hut, where it had left a visiting-card, and had then gone straight to a mound at the back of us, where there is some walrus blubber, surrounded on all sides by bears' carcasses. These had no terrors for it. The bearskin which covered it, it had dragged a long way, but fortunately it had not succeeded in getting anything eaten before I came. "Sunday, May 3d. When Johansen came in this morning he said he had seen a bear out on the ice; it was coming in. He went out a little later to look for it, but did not see it; it had probably gone into the bay to the north. We expected a visit from it, however, as the wind was that way; and as we sat later in the day, sewing as hard as we could sew, we heard heavy footsteps on the snow outside. They stopped, went backward and forward a little, and then something was drawn along, and all was quiet. Johansen crept cautiously out with his gun. When he put his head out of the hole, and his eyes had recovered from the first dazzling effects of the daylight, he saw the bear standing gnawing at a bearskin. A bullet through the head killed it on the spot It was a lean little animal, but worth taking, inasmuch as it saved us the trouble of thawing up carcasses in order to cut provisions for our journey off them. Frozen stiff as they now are, we cannot cut them up outside in the cold, but have to bring them into the hut and soften them in the warmth before we can cut anything off them and this takes time. Two bears were here on a visit last night, but they turned back again at the sledge, which is stuck up on end in the moraine to the west of us, to serve as a stand for our thermometer."