Blond Eskimos

Blond Eskimos or White Eskimos is the popular name for a group of Eskimos residing on both sides of Coronation Gulf between mainland Canada and Victoria Island, whose first contact with Westerners may go back to Sir John Franklin in 1821 and Dease and Simpson in 1838-9. They were visited and described by the Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson in 1910. A frequent occurrence of light hair and gray or blue eyes exists amongst them, while most other New World peoples have dark hair and brown eyes. In his book "My Life with the Eskimos", Stefánsson proposed several explanations:

* Early mixture with Norse colonists from Greenland;
* Mixture with European whalers;
* Ancient migration of European-like people from across the Bering Strait;

He rejected the second explanation because "if the mixing of races is so recent, it would appear that it should be most conspicuous farther east where the whalers had their headquarters, fading away as one goes westward. The opposite is the case".

In 2003, two Icelandic scientists, the geneticist and anthropologists Agnar Helgason and Gisli Palsson announced the results of their research comparing DNA from 100 Cambridge Bay Inuit with DNA from Icelanders, and concluded that there was no match. [ [http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2003/10/28/inuit_blond031028.html CBC - DNA tests debunk blond Inuit legend] ]

In 2005 the same researchers went on to compare the Cambridge Bay Inuit DNA to Greenland Inuit DNA. [ [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112214855/abstract? mtDNA variation in Inuit populations of Greenland and Canada] ]

References and Further Reading

* Stefánsson, "My Life with the Eskimo", (New York, 1912)
* Helgason et al, "mtDNA variation in Inuit populations of Greenland and Canada: Migration history and population structure"; American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 130, Issue 1, pp. 123-134. [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112214855/abstract? Abstract]