How the Skraeling saw the Norse

This figurine was made between 1250 and 1300 and records the meeting of the Skraeling coming from the west and the Norse coming from the east in a short period of a warmer climate. It was found on Baffin Island, it 's 5,3cm high, carved from driftwood (though my books says walrus ivory), in typical Inuit style but showing western clothing with a cross incised at the chest. 

Emily Carr had vision

A few years I visited a retrospective on the Canadian painter Emily Carr, who is best known for her attempts to create a native (as in vernacular, not as a ethnic attribute) artistic vision on Canadian nature. At the time I was most annoyed by three pretentious art-snobs, all woman, who were mocking here amateurish style and awkward colour palette. Negativity always comes cheap. What struck me about Emily Carr is that I could really get, sometimes even borrow, the feeling she was trying to capture and the awesome spectacle of nature that she wanted to record. And I think that her unrefined technique actually communicated her vision and intents better than a more accomplished technician could ever have. I was especially struck by a painting of a totem-pole popping up in the landscape which I thought represented the pleasant feeling of arriving in a village after a horrible week-long journey through the wilderness.