From earliest contacts: an examination of Inuit and Aleut art in Scottish collections

This chapter examines collections of Inuit and Aleut art in Scotland. They include items gathered on explorative journeys by Sir William Parry during the 1820s; collected by Scots during the nineteenth century, and produced for the late twentieth century art market. While Eskimoaleut art objects can be bought quite easily on the European and American market if one knows where to look, numbers of tourists, in the modern sense of the word, to the north polar region itself are small. The earliest identified group of Eskimoaleut 'souvenirs' in Scotland is at the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, and relates to the explorative excursions of William Edward Parry around Melville Peninsula while attempting to discover the northern sea route to the Far East, the Northwest Passage, in 1821-1823. From the eighteenth century to the present, explorers, whalers, traders, scientists, and a small number of late twentieth century museum curators have all brought items of such artwork to Scotland.