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atlasobscura.com/articles/gree

I'm in love! These are so incredibly logical;

* with no easy way to check distance other than very subjective paddle strokes, it makes sense piloting would really work on mnemonics

* sealing, estimating ice thickness etc, these are people who're gonna be thinking a lot in spatial relationships

* even if Inuit could have developed paper, it wouldn't be very practical while kayaking - this is portable, survives water and you can easily recarve it as the coast changes

Also, I think it's specious to claim use is purely what a modern post-contact person would think. People with similar needs aren't too different by culture and the anecdotes that Greenlanders figured out Danish charts in no time suggests they were going in with a similar logic. I mean yeah, it's presumptuous but it's also the simplest explanation.

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