The Explorer, The Museum, and Another Controversy Over Ownership

The Royal Alberta Museum is scrambling to raise $1 million to buy a historic collection of native Canadian artifacts gathered by explorer James Carnegie when they hit the auction block in New York this week. “The museum fears the pieces of Canadian history will be dispersed among private collectors and institutions as the items are sold individually. But the sale is also coming under fire from the Minneapolis, Minn.-based American Indian Movement, which for years has likened Sotheby’s sale of native artifacts to Nazi theft of property from Jewish families during the Holocaust.”