[Paddlewise] Inuit Discovery of Scotland

Colin wrote;

> I was therefore somewhat surprised when I read last week that a
>kayak arrived in Scotland, along the coast that I can see out of my
window,
>circa 1730, complete with native paddler alive in the cockpit. I can't
>imagine what the local inhabitants made of this traveller, but the poor
soul
>apparently died three days later, unable to communicate  the circumstances
>that led him to a beach in Aberdeenshire.

News travels slowly in Scotland. Nevertheless, there is a move afoot led by
the Dr. Inverbon  M.Lit.,Ph.M., D.D.,Ph.D.to recognise this intrepid
explorer who opened Scotland to world trade so many years ago. Dr. Inverbon
is having the greatest difficulty in recreating the events leading up to
this noble expedition but I can pass on what he has conveyed to me to this
point.

According to pictographs discovered by Dr. Inverbon a small group of East
Greenland radicals was convinced that the world was round (Today we know
how ridiculous the idea is but these were a primitive people) and that by
sailing to the East they would  reach Piccadilly Circus where they hoped to
trade for fish and chips batter and warm beer. They made such a nuisance of
themselves that the Angmassalik elders finally gave them three kayaks
(named the Pamela Anderson, the Fergy and the #62) and a three day supply
of muktuk. Bidding them farewell they promptly  forgot about them.

It was a good thing they did (forget about them) because two of the boats
turned south and discovered what is now called New York where they
cohabited with the natives and after generations of inbreeding developed a
race of taxi drivers. The third member of the party persevered  and arrived
in the new world exhausted and stunned to discover that the natives were
remarkably stupid and poorly educated. Most of them stood about reciting an
incomprehensible poem consisting of 14,000 lines called the Percy. Those
who did not know all the words to The Percy would recite poems by a local
poet named Burns who had not yet been born.

None was capable of speaking and intelligent word in the Inuit language no
matter how much he waved his arms about. Even more discouraging was the
discovery that there was no fish and chips batter nor even a warm beer to
be had. The natives survived on a diet of haggis and a smoked cured
beverage made from peat they called "uisge beatha".

The tragedy is that our Euro centric history has failed to recognise this
hero for discovering Scotland and bringing religion to its inhabitants. A
small  remnant of his feat remains in the Scottish national trait of
frugality (you have to be pretty frugal to paddle from Greenland to
Scotland on three days worth of muktuk) and in Presbyterianism.

Dr. Inverbon hopes to undue the grievous wrong.

Cheers,
John Winters
Redwing Designs
Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft
http://home.ican.net/~735769/






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