James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk, KT, DL, FRGS (16 November 1827 – 21 February 1905) was a Scottish nobleman, explorer and poet.

[3] He travelled through the prairies to Fort Edmonton, then to the east slopes of the Rockies, seeing much of the western part of present-day north-central Alberta before returning to New York by way of Winnipeg.

Carnegie wrote that the reason for the expedition was to, "travel in some part of the world where good sport could be met with among the larger animals, and where, at the same time, I might recruit my health by an active open-air life in a healthy climate.

Eventually, he ended up in St. Paul, Minnesota, the jumping-off point for his expedition, and then continued on north to Fort Garry, the HBC's western headquarters in the Red River Colony, today's Winnipeg.

[4] At the fort he bought horses, hired a Métis, Antoine Blandoine, to be his guide, and built enough pack saddles to haul his outfit.

[12] For the expedition he employed several Métis guides and helpers: James McKay, John McKay, George Klyne, John "Piscan" Munroe, Baptiste La Grace, James "Little Dog" Short, Antoine Blandion,[clarification needed] Pierre Desnomme, Thomas Arinwakena, and Duncan Robertson.

[14] His research on the Cree language was published that same year, under the title The Cree syllabic characters, terminations, &c.[15] An exhibit dedicated to the Earl's prairie and mountain trip, including a life-sized statue of a large plains grizzly bear he killed while on a bison hunt on the nearby prairie,[16] is at Ancient Echoes Interpretive Centre in Herschel, Saskatchewan.

The artifacts returned home with Southesk to Kinnaird Castle, the family estate in Scotland where they remained for the next 146 years, until 2006, when the earl's descendants put them up for auction at Sotheby's in New York.

[4] Although relatively small, the Southesk collection is historically significant given that objects from the northern Plains dating to the 1850s are rare and that many of the artifacts are of exceptional quality.

Although modest in size, the collection includes work from at least five distinct cultures: Plains Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakoda and Anishnaabe.

They had three sons and four daughters, including:[1] Lord Southesk died on 21 February 1905, aged seventy-seven while at his home in Kinnaird Castle in Scotland.