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The Vancouver Maritime
Museum has a collection of more than 170,000 objects
including 35,000 artifacts, 20,000 books, 262 original
paintings/artwork and 114,000 photographs This online
collection gives you access to just a few of our
hidden and not so hidden treasures.
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Category Index >
Category:
Instruments and Equipment > Artifact: Inuit Snow Goggles
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Inuit Snow Goggles
Category: Instruments and Equipment
These inuit snow goggles were collected by Henry Larsen while aboard RCMP ST ROCH, 1929-1948.
The intense sunlight of the springtime in the Arctic, when reflected from the snow-covered ground, causes a temporary condition called snow blindness. To prevent this, the Inuit made snow goggles. These were fashioned to fit the contours of the face snugly to allow light to enter only through narrow viewing slits that restricted the field of vision and reduced the amount of light that reached the optic nerve.
The area behind each eye slit was hollowed out to prevent eye contact and blackened to eliminate glare. Earlier (dating back centuries) goggles were made of bone in the wood scarce Arctic, but later, when wood became more plentiful, such as the time these were made in the early twentieth century, wooden goggles began to appear.
The width of the slits governs the width of lateral vision, and the narrower the slit, the more the acuity of vision. This simple but ingenous invention is superior to modern high-tech sunglasses. |
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[ print version ]
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