Catalogue information Record 4352
Model kayak. Of dressed skin, stitched over slight wooden frame, trimmings of ivory and whale-bone, double-ended paddle, ivory tipped, has been broken and badly glued. Apart from a few minute perforations and one or two broken straps, the canoe is in good condition.
Once common on Shetland homes, these models were brought home by seamen in the Arctic whaling who obtained them in traffic with the Eskimos at Greenland. This example is from Lerwick. It is from West Greenland, south of Melville Bay. The identifying features are the bone tips to the paddles and on the kayak, needed to save the kayak and paddles from newly formed ice.