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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
It may be a little rugged and just a little larger than a golf ball, but Bruce Christensen's stone carving of a head had on Antique Road Show appraiser excited.

This carved head is pretty intact for what appraiser Derek Cooke said was a 200-year-old Inuit doll head. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photos

Appraiser Derek Cooke met with a number of residents to give a public evaluation of their historical pieces in order to close out Heritage Week at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Feb. 26. He told Christenson that the artifact is a 200-year-old Inuit doll head.

Christensen took the time Tuesday to give Yellowknifer a glimpse.

The owner said he learned more about the piece because going into the roadshow he only viewed it as a family item passed down from his prospecting grandfather, Stanley Christensen.

"I didn't know what it was, but all I knew was that it was a head," he said. "But that could mean that it was off of a statue or something. To find out that it is over 200 years ago is also pretty cool."

Right now it is difficult to say much about the piece. Christensen said his grandfather worked all over the North, in Uranium City and at Giant Mine as well as in parts of Nunavut during his prospecting career. At some point, which is lost to history, Stanley came across the head.

The piece, as well as another unidentified green stone that was cut out of the ground, was handed down through the family to Bruce.

"The story is that he did come across it as he was prospecting," he said. "I don't know the location as of yet."

Research on the piece and its provenance continue, however, he says. He says he hopes to be in contact with museum professionals from the heritage centre and he has done some initial sleuthing on the Internet.

"I have been looking on the Internet, but there is not a lot of information out there on 200-year-old Inuit doll heads."

Christensen said the piece's physical attributes and markings are what seem particularly intriguing.

"It is pretty intricate," he said. "The nose is fully intact where apparently, as a nomadic society, kids would play with them and break off the nose. According to the appraiser, he had never seen hair carved into the head. So it's interesting stuff."

Cooke said he had approached the antique show wishing to get people interested in the history of the objects, rather than just the monetary value. In the case of this piece, Christensen said there was no price attributed to it, largely because of "insurance purposes."

Both Cooke and Christensen emphasized it is more the Northern association that made the piece more unique than perhaps many others that were brought forth.

Museum director Barb Cameron said the object caught her eye when she attended the road show, but she was uncertain if anyone at the centre could add further information about the origin of the piece.

She said Christensen's participation was one example of how the road show brought out a whole new range of people interested in history.

"What the show did was bring in a whole different clientele for us, which I like because I like to have programs that offer a different variety of people with different interests," she said. "What struck me was that somebody like Bruce or (Waylon Pye) who brought in the military rifle were young people because it is always very encouraging for me to see young people interested in old things."

Photos were e-mailed to former museum director and Western Arctic archaeologist Chuck Arnold. He said from his experience, any Inuit dolls that were made in the last 800 years were typically made out of wood. He also said that any carvings of faces out of stone were much more recently done by the Inuit and would have been done for trading purposes.

He also said the way the eyes were done in the piece was not consistent with what he has seen.

"If someone handed it to me, my first reaction would be that it was broken off a stone carving," he said.

While he said he is not an expert in Inuit dolls, he said the likelihood of it being part of a doll was slim.

"I've seen quite a few and excavated some, but this piece just doesn't fit with other dolls," he said.

Asked if he thought if it was strange that Christensen's piece had hair carved into it, Arnold agreed.

"Yes, it is quite unusual, and is one of the reasons I regard the piece not to be typical of early Inuit/Inuvialuit dolls," he said.

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