In the paddle strokes of the Inuit

[Uilleachan]

A couple of lads have paddled from Greenland to Scotland, to recreate the trips made by the Inuit of the 17-1800's

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37295203

Respect!

 

[Toddy]

Oh very good, and thank you for the link :thumbup:

I have friends who have lived for generations on the outer islands, and they say that it wasn't common, but not unknown for the Inuit to travel….all the stories about the selkies, etc., and there is sometimes a cast to a person's features that just looks that shade different.
I admit I have wondered if the recent DNA researches would throw up something

M

 

[mrcharly]

amazing stuff. how the heck do they carry enough food in that or sleep?

 

[forrestdweller]

amazing stuff. how the heck do they carry enough food in that or sleep?

.... or cope with the need to go to the toilet?!
and how did their leg muscles cope with the lack of exercise?!
"devil's dance floor"" sounds like an area i prefer to avoid to them!

 

[Klenchblaize]

Keeping the wood burning stove upright must have been tricky!

K

 

[mrcharly]

.... or cope with the need to go to the toilet?!
and how did their leg muscles cope with the lack of exercise?!

I've done a lot of kayaking. leg muscles get used more than you expect, the issue that they don't get flexed over much of a range of movement.

 

[Tengu]

Werent the Finmen from Scandanavia??

(But we know from studies that there were two sorts of people in Viking Greenland; farmers and sealers)

Duncan Willamson claimed that the selkie did not speak Gaelic...

DNA would tell us a lot, but I rather suspect all sorts of people came over to Scotland on Whalers, John Sakenose probably wasnt the only one.

(There was a guy whose life should be a film. He came to Dundee from Labrodor with the aim of studying art. He went to art school, and we have his self portrait, he also brought his kayak which (I think) is one of the examples in Edinburgh museum.)

 

[Uilleachan]

Fishing from the boat and not being shy of sushi would help with the en route shopping

I've a book somewhere that charts the rise and demise of the greenland whale fishery, a great read. It talks quite a bit about the Inuit some of whom traveled aboard the various ships in different rolls and of course those Inuit who just arrived, by kayak, having paddled the North Atlantic.

The book also cast a light on that that folk song, "bonny ship the diamond" and all the ships named in it; the Resolution, Lisa Swan, the Battler and the Diamond, were all real ships and featured large in the story, until they eventually got caught out and trapped in the ice at the top end of the Davis Strait, for a couple of years before being lost along with most of the crews. Must dig it out and re read it.

 

[boatman]

Lots of different strands here. Finnmen might well have been Sea Sami from Norway. Some Inuit might have been taken aboard whalers and cast off later. Such a trip would have been possible from Greenland. There was an ingenious indigenous invention to evacuate waste. Basically an open bag that could be used then the top closed and the bottom opened which led directly into the sea. Or use a sealskin bag and empty it out the top of the kayak.

Sadly one of the kayaks found on the East Coast was given by a museum to a group of kayakers as a play boat and got smashed up in the sea.

It is also possible that there were indigenous kayakers in Britain. With a friend I built a possible Bronze Age kayak from the excavation of a grave in Dalgety, Fife.

This is an excellent book on the subject

 

[Uilleachan]

Thanks Boatman, just ordered a copy of that.

 

[Robson Valley]

Is there any evidence of their method(s) of navigation? Icelandic spar crystals = sunstones? Night time astronomy?

 

[Tengu]

<Tengu bothers to actualy read article.>

66 days? They could have done that in half the time if they hadnt stopped to ask the way and send their laundry home to be done...

(And it aint Experimental archaeology in a modern boat...)

You notice they take the obvious Iceland route (But no evidence of Greenlanders in Iceland, as there would be if this journey was ever done.)

And the Faroes (Yes, they do have the Selkie legend there...)

And of course the closest point to the Faroes is North Rona (Its a tiny place...how would you hit it without GPS?)

(There are no selkie legends from North Rona, though there is a mermaid tale)

Anyhow, I stand by my Finmen...

...And women, of course, more evidence they were not Greenlanders.

http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/finfolk/index.html

But there are many strange tales.

Who did the boat in Hull museum belong to? H C Petersens `skinboats of Greenland` describe it as of unique construction, and it seems to have been designed for a small person, probably an adolescent.

 

[Toddy]

If one is experienced it is possible to read signs in the sky that show where islands may lie. From clouds to birds to reading the currents in the water.

The ice fluctuates, and always has done so.

Modern well fed people are generally larger than many of the past&#8230;.look at Victorian ladies gowns for instance. To us they seem child sized, yet were worn by adult women, and I don't mean just the bit that was corseted.

As for no evidence in Greenland&#8230;skraelings didn't rate much among the incomers, and left virtually no trace. They didn't farm, they didn't build from materials that weren't reused or eaten or biodegraded with wind and weather, yet they lived and thrived where the incomers died.

I believe that there are problems with the currents coming that way though.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

The Inuit carved 3D wooden maps of the coastline of Greenland. I can only see those being useful to a newcomer
until you learn the shape of the land.
Open ocean in a kayak built for one person. I can't believe that they depended upon luck.

Once upon a time I got a map from a Cree indian. A series of visible landmarks scratched with knifepoint on birch bark.
The west side of Prince Albert National Park, in fact. A long canoe trip with portages.
No distances. You go until you see the next landmark, the portages were heavily overgrown unless you had the map.
But open ocean in a kayak with no references?

 

[forrestdweller]

But open ocean in a kayak with no references?

which reminds me of St. Brendan and other (irish) monks who crossed the rough northern atlantic in open coracles without even knowing iceland (and possibly north america) was there.... . not all of them made it i guess....

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

I understand that much of northern europe had a 'mini ice age in medieval times and perhaps the ice sheet was much further south than now. So if they were inuit and got lost at sea or drifted off on an ice sheet, they were just lost and simply looking for somewhere to land??

Shame they didn't come on purpose = we could have planted a flag and claimed the UK as Indian Land!!!

 

[Leshy]

I understand that much of northern europe had a 'mini ice age in medieval times and perhaps the ice sheet was much further south than now. So if they were inuit and got lost at sea or drifted off on an ice sheet, they were just lost and simply looking for somewhere to land??

Shame they didn't come on purpose = we could have planted a flag and claimed the UK as Indian Land!!!

&#128513;

Brilliant.

Not sure why, but I wish that had happened...

What an interesting scenario...
Food for thought.

 

[Toddy]

I understand that much of northern europe had a 'mini ice age in medieval times and perhaps the ice sheet was much further south than now. So if they were inuit and got lost at sea or drifted off on an ice sheet, they were just lost and simply looking for somewhere to land??

Shame they didn't come on purpose = we could have planted a flag and claimed the UK as Indian Land!!!

I can see it now&#8230;totem poles in the Hebrides fighting for space with the stone circles
Brilliant

M

 

[Leshy]

I can see it now…totem poles in the Hebrides fighting for space with the stone circles
Brilliant

M

&#128513; .........&#128514;

 

[Toddy]

We already have the Galgael here. It means "strange or foreign Gael". They were the people who emerged from the mixing of cultures of indigenous Picts and Scots with the Norse Vikings, in our western isles and sea lands.
A healthy dose of incoming Americans could only enrich that&#8230;.if they could have gotten a foothold that is. Our history isn't one of peace

M