Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions

Musk ox provide inhabitants of the arctic with an important supply of meat, fur, and bone.

“[Upon seeing the musk ox], we were trembling too much with excitement... We must rush on them… there was a snort and a stamp of the hoof from the big bull guarding the herd, and the next instant every animal was facing us; the next they were in close line with lowered heads and horns… Many of us have read one of these thrilling stories of travelers in the Russian forests, chased by hungry wolves, and have had our feelings wrought up to the highest pitch with sympathy for the poor devils in their effort to escape. But did any of us ever stop to think of the sensations of those other poor devils, the starving wolves? I know now what their feelings are, and my sympathies are with the wolves… Without slackening pace, I pulled my Winchester to my shoulder, and sent a bullet at the back of [the bull’s] neck… Heart, and soul, and brain, and eyes went with that singing bullet, for I knew that it meant our lives… I can scarcely realize as I write these lines, what absolute animals hunger makes of men, and yet I can truthfully say never have I tasted more delicious food than that tender, raw, warm meat—a mouthful here and a mouthful there, cut from the animal as I skinned it.” - Robert E. Peary in Northward over the “Great Ice”, published in 1898

"He Sank on His Haunches"by Robert E. Peary 1891, Northward over the “Great Ice” Vol. I and II. Frederick a. Stokes Company: New York, 1898.

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