Adventure on Saltspring Island

Two of the most interesting presentations at the Saltspring Explorers Conference delved into the cultures of the Polar Inuit of Greenland and the Polynesian people of Raivavae, two societies at extreme ends of every criteria.

Greenland

Greenland: Jim Allan is a professional adventurer who fell in love with the Polar Inuit (Eskimos) of Greenland while doing advance work for his companies: EcoSummer (www.ecosummer.com) which organizes eco–tourism trips to distant places; and Weatherhaven (www.weatherhaven.com) which designs, manufactures, and installs all–season shelters for peace–keeping forces, emergency aid workers, field researchers and industry.

For business and pleasure he has crossed the Sahara by camel, wandered through Afghanistan and Central Asia on horseback, and sea–kayaked from Seattle to Alaska. His topic for the conference was a dog sled trip with the Inuit from Thule, Greenland, to Grise Fjord on Ellesmere Island and back. He served as producer and photographer of a documentary of the trip entitled, A Journey with the Polar Inuit.

Jim Allan took a dog sled trip from Thule, Greenland, to Ellesmere Island with the Polar Inuit. The Inuit society is being drastically affected by global warming. In the past two decades, they have seen a 40% reduction of the ice pack and seepage of deadly gas from the tundra. This has damaged their hunting culture by reducing the number of seals, whales, and walrus they depend on for food and shelter.

Polynesia

Polynesia: Lynn Danaher told of her expeditions to Raivavae at the far reaches of French Polynesia. Her fascination with Polynesian culture began in the 1960s when she was a student at the University of Hawaii. Over the years, though, she was sidetracked by homesteading and commercial fishing in Alaska, whale watching in the San Juan Islands of Washington state, and deep sea diving along the Pacific coast.

Above: A problem with dog sledding is tangling of the lines. Jim Allen and his Inuit driver mush the dog sled through a snow storm. Danaher and archaeologists Edmundo Edwards, Patricia Vargas, and Claudio Cristino founded the Pacific Islands Research Institute www.raivavae.net/ to conduct archaeological studies on Raivavae, an island of 16 square kilometers in a lagoon of 64 square kilometers. The question that guides their research is “Who were the original settlers of Raivavae, where did they come from, and where did they go?”

Thor Heyerdahl of Kon Tiki fame studied the island in 1956, and in the late 1980s over 600 archaeological sites were located by Edmundo Edwards. She plans to excavate some of these sites to determine the connection between Rai-vavae, Easter Island, and Pitcairn Island.

(Next week: Another Civil War Submarine?)

Lynn Danaher explores Polynesian culture on Raivavae Island. A man stands in a typical home on Raivavae Island