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The Belhelvie Kayak, Marischal College, Aberdeen
Of the many stories highlighting connections between Scotland and Native Americans, almost undoubtedly the strangest is that of the Eskimo man who, in 1728, paddled his kayak up the River Don in Aberdeenshire and was brought ashore at Belhelvie, in the final stages of exhaustion. He died a short time later, all attempts at communication having failed in the meantime. The visitation of this lost soul therefore remains largely unexplained.
Physical evidence survives, of the man’s kayak, which, with accompanying paddle, spear, bird-spear, throwing stick and harpoon, are preserved in the University of Aberdeen’s Marischal College museum.
The main source is an entry in the diary of the Reverend Francis Gastrell, who made an inspection of these items in King’s College, Aberdeen, in 1861, in which he describes:
...a canoe about seven yards long by two feet wide, which about 32 years since was driven into the Don with a man in it who was all over hairy, and spoke a language which no person there could interpret. He lived but three days, though all possible care was taken to recover him. In 1976, the various artifacts were credibly identified as having an eastern Greenland provenance, although the wooden components were found on analysis to be of Scots fir.
It seems unlikely that the man could, or would, have undertaken so long and perilous a solo journey in such a fragile craft. The most plausible - or, perhaps, least implausible - explanation appears to be provided by a parallel legend from Denmark, around the same time period. A Danish whaling ship, having abducted an Inuit family in Greenland, took them to the Royal Court at Copenhagen, to be exhibited as living curiosities. The woman of the family died and her distraught husband made his escape, never to be seen in Denmark again. It is even possible that he constructed his kayak while in Denmark, using locally available materials. It may be taken that he set sail in the direction of his distant home but that north-eastern Scotland was as far as he got.
