Please excuse a small diversion from the voyage story: Alex has said it's OK to upload this.
Last year he gave me a plastic token he kept after visiting Cambridge Bay (Ikaluktutiak) while sailing the North West Passage in 2008. It's a token allowing the limited purchase of alcohol at a Club, or Lodge called ELKS. Let's leave aside the almost unimaginable concept that this "One Drink" was not claimed.
I am a long-time Friend of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and felt that this unusual - if humble - object might be of interest to the Museum, and so I wrote to them about it. The Joint Head of Collections replied that they would be delighted to accept the token as an addition to their collection of "coinage substitutes." The PRM, I should explain, is a world-class Museum and part of the University of Oxford. Objects are displayed by type rather than culture. It has long been an inspiration to writers and artists as well as to historians, explorers, anthropologists and archaeologists, both for the objects it displays as well as their often intriguing provenances.
Relevant links to this update:
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
Relevant pages on the old NWP blog
NB: this is the Berrisite that has been heavily spammed in its most recent pages. When you get to the page in my link you need to scroll down to the dates around 8th August. You'll see a title: Cambridge Bay, wherever google earth thinks it is. The update below that title is the nearest I can find to link the token to the NWP story.
Why alcohol abuse is a problem in Cambridge Bay:
Posted by Isabella, Alex's sister in the UK
