Aage Gaup. 2012. sculpture of Ravna and Balto skiing across Kalaallit Nunaat (plaster model for Gaup's bronze sculpture, De To På Tur). 50.5 x 22.5 x 40 cm. RiddoDuottarMuseat. 

This is a plaster model of Sámi artist Aage Gaup’s (1943-2021) large bronze sculpture De To På Tur (The Two on a Trip) from 2012. Located in the centre of Kárášjohka, Sápmi, the full-sized sculpture celebrates the accomplishments of Samuel Johannesen Balto and Ole Nilsen Ravna as explorers and harbingers of culture. It shows Balto and Ravna wearing the traditional gákti (‘kufte’/coat), čiehgahpir (hat worn by men) and komager (footwear) that were of such interest to the West Greenlandic Inuit as expressions of another Arctic Indigenous culture. In presenting ‘the two’ skiing alongside each other, as they might have done on the Nansen expedition, Gaup’s sculpture pays homage to the long Sámi tradition of a mode of travel often believed to be distinctly ‘Norwegian’ and successfully introduced into Arctic exploration by Fridtjof Nansen. 

Essay by Sigfrid Kjeldaas