ABSTRACT
On 9 January 1830, in the snowy wastes of the Canadian Arctic, a British exploratory expedition met a group of Inuit who had never encountered Europeans before. Unlike some first encounters between cultures, this meeting seems to have been entirely amicable. Gifts were exchanged, and when a British officer and one of the Inuit took part in a friendly running race, they did so ‘with so much and such equal politeness on both sides that there was no victor to be declared’ (Ross 1835: 247). The British also offered the Inuit some of the tinned food they had brought with them, but this exchange was less successful:
They did not relish our preserved meat: but one who ate a morsel seemed to do it as a matter of obedience, saying it was very good, but admitting, on being cross questioned by Commander Ross, that he had said what was not true; on which all the rest, on receiving permission, threw away what they had received.
(Ross 1835: 246)