Running over loose ice pans in this manner was not wholly new to Bobby. Every hunter in the Eskimo country learns to do it, and Bobby had often practiced it in Abel's Bay when the water was calm and the ice pans to a great extent stationary. But he had never attempted it on the open sea where the pans were never free from motion. It was, therefore, though not an unusual feat for the experienced seal hunter, a hazardous undertaking.