Talk: The Two Arctics

Saturday 22nd March

11am

Pay what you can

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Join us as Eric McVicar explores the history and current situations of the Sami people of the warm Arctic and the Inuit people of the cold Arctic in this fascinating talk.

McVicar has lived and worked with both groups of people and has family history going back over a century with the Inuit of Greenland and Baffin Island. He looks at the effect of modern society and climate change on these amazing people who have for millennia lived in harmony with nature.

The legacy that the Scottish whaling industry has left with the Inuit is also clearly demonstrated in this talk which accompanies his new book.

McVicar also covers the verbatim account of Scotsman Alex Ritchie’s survival when crossing Baffin Island in the winter of 1908-1909; a unique first-hand account of unequalled bravery and determination almost unknown and unrecognised outside the Inuit community, despite Alex Ritchie coming from a Scottish fishing village. His rescuing of a complete Inuit community from the shipwreck of the Dundee whaling ship, Snowdrop, remains one of the greatest untold stories of the Arctic.

Banner image: Eric McVicar with Sami Reindeer Herders, Alta and Finnmark, Arctic Norway.