After spending two months in southern Alaska, I determined to visit the Kadiak Islands in pursuit of this bear.  I reached my destination the latter part of June, and three days later had started on my shooting expedition with native hunters.  Unfortunately I had come too late in the season.  The grass had shot up until it was shoulder high, making it most difficult to see at any distance the game I was after.

The result of this, my first hunt, was that I actually saw but three bear, and got but one shot, which, I am ashamed to record, was a miss.  Tracks there were in plenty along the salmon streams, and some of these were so large I concluded that as a sporting trophy a good example of the Kadiak bear should equal, if not surpass, in value any other kind of big game to be found on the North American continent.  This opinion received confirmation later when I saw the size of the skins brought in by the natives to the two trading companies.

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As I sailed away from Kadiak that fall morning I determined that my hunt was not really over, but only interrupted by the long northern winter, and that the next spring would find me once more in pursuit of this great bear.

It was not only with the hope of shooting a Kadiak bear that I decided to make this second expedition, but I had become greatly interested in the big brute, and although no naturalist myself, it was now to be my aim to bring back to the scientists at Washington as much definite material about him as possible.  Therefore the objects of my second trip were: 

Firstly, to obtain a specimen of bear from the Island of Kadiak; secondly, to obtain specimens of the bears found on the Alaska Peninsula; and, lastly, to obtain, if possible, a specimen of bear from one of the other islands of the Kadiak group.  With such material I hoped that it could at least be decided definitely if all the bears of the Kadiak Islands are of one species; if all the bears on the Alaska Peninsula are of one species; and also if the Kadiak bear is found on the mainland, for there are unquestionably many points of similarity between the bears of the Kadiak Islands and those of the Alaska Peninsula.  It was also my plan, if I was successful in all these objects, to spend the fall on the Kenai Peninsula in pursuit of the white sheep and the moose.

Generally I have made it a point to go alone on all big-game shooting trips, but on this journey I was fortunate in having as companion an old college friend, Robert P. Blake.

My experience of the year before was of value in getting our outfit together.  At almost all points in Alaska most of the necessary provisions can be bought, but I should rather advise one to take all but the commonest necessities with him, for frequently the stocks at the various trading posts run low.  For this reason we took with us from Seattle sufficient provisions to last us six months, and from time to time, as necessity demanded, added to our stores.  As the rain falls almost daily in much of the coast country, we made it a point to supply ourselves liberally with rubber boots and rain-proof clothing.