Buy souvenirs mindfully and ethically to ensure your gift is worth it. Photo / Getty Images
Buy souvenirs mindfully and ethically to ensure your gift is worth it. Photo / Getty Images
Souvenirs can make beautiful keepsakes, or they can serve as a reminder of that time you paid for something inauthentic. Jessica Wynne Lockhart finds ways to avoid the latter.
As I walked through the Yukon First Nations Arts Store in Whitehorse, Canada, I was drawn towards a display of moccasins.
They were unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Intricately beaded with colourful images of flowers and trimmed with fur, the leather slippers were stunning—a souvenir worthy of taking home. But the price tag gave me pause. They were more than $500 for a single pair, when I’d seen some for less than $100 elsewhere on my travels.
“They’re made by a Gertie Tom, an Elder from Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation,” Sharon Vittrekwa, the store’s manager, told me. She explained that 95-year-old Tom — who learned to sew traditional artwork from her mother — is actively involved in preserving the skills of her people and has authored several books, including one on how to tan hides.
“People are healing through their work and that energy carries on to whoever purchases it,” said Vittrekwa.
Suddenly, the price point made sense. They weren’t mass-produced moccasins. They were pieces of art priced to reflect not just the materials and Tom’s labour, but the generations of traditional knowledge that led to their creation.
When it comes to buying souvenirs, it’s hard to ignore the lure of the gift shop with its endless rows of trinkets and tchotchkes. Having a keepsake of our travels serves as tangible proof that we were once there. And when best practices are followed—such as not buying items made of animal products, including shells or coral — shopping can also help to support the local economy of the place you’re visiting.
When it comes to buying souvenirs, it’s hard to ignore the lure of the gift shop and its trinkets. Photo / Getty Images
But seeking out sustainable souvenirs can be more complex than determining whether an item is eco-friendly. Souvenirs have the capacity to help preserve traditional practices and culture — but conversely, can also lead to its degradation.
It’s estimated that up to 85 per cent of art sold through tourism markets as First Nations souvenirs is fake or imported, making it an act of cultural appropriation. That’s why it’s critical to ensure makers are properly compensated for their work by asking for more information about the artist or for a certificate of authenticity.
Some of the best spots to find souvenirs that meet these parameters are art gallery and museum gift shops. Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre in the Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park, for example, sells paintings, carvings and woven pandanus baskets and jewellery by Aboriginal artists from the surrounding region.
Artists bring their wares to the shop, where they work with the store’s management to set a fair price. The cost of the original artwork reflects its origins, but there are also more affordable options, including silkscreened T-shirts, where the artists are paid a royalty from each sale.
Some of the best spots to find souvenirs that meet these parameters are art gallery and museum gift shops. Photo / 123rf
When it comes to antiques, dig into the origin of items. On a recent holiday to Queensland, I saw an early 20th century South Pacific burial cloth for sale in a tourist gift shop. In an era where museums are beginning to repatriate items (with an estimated 70 per cent of artefacts looted or stolen by colonisers from their countries of origin) it made me reconsider the item’s provenance. How did the store come into possession of it?
More importantly, how would the living family or community members of its original owner or maker feel about it being sold to a tourist for thousands of dollars?
If this all sounds too complex, there are, thankfully, simple alternatives that you won’t just end up donating to the op shop in five years. But first, you might want to reconsider the definition of “souvenir” suggests Mickela Mallozzi, host of award-winning travel show Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi.
“It doesn’t have mean buying something fully tangible,” she says. “If you take a cooking class with a local, your takeaway could be the recipe they shared with you, or buying local spices to help recreate that dish when you return home.”
As for gifting souvenirs to your friends and family? Don’t assume gift-giving is everyone’s love language. But if you do want to give them a little something, try a postcard instead.
If you want to gift a little something, try a postcard instead. Photo / Getty Images
“Whoever is receiving it will have a smile on their face when it arrives. It shows you were thinking of them while also giving them a piece of your travel experience,” says Mallozzi, who also recommends sending yourself a postcard. “I love doing that, as it reminds me of the magical moment I was having when writing the note.
