Snow goggles (

Inuktitut Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...

: or , syllabics: ᐃᓪᒑᒃ or ᐃᒡᒑᒃ;Asuilaak Living Dictionary - snow goggles
/ref> esu, nigaugek, ) are a type of eyewear traditionally used by the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and ...

and the

Yupik Yupik may refer to: * Yupik peoples, a group of indigenous peoples of Alaska and the Russian Far East * Yupik languages, a group of Eskimo-Aleut languages Yupꞌik (with the apostrophe) may refer to: * Yup'ik people, a Yupik people from western and ...

peoples of the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

to prevent

snow blindness Photokeratitis or ultraviolet keratitis is a painful eye condition caused by exposure of insufficiently protected eyes to the ultraviolet (UV) rays from either natural (e.g. intense sunlight) or artificial (e.g. the electric arc during welding) ...

.Inuit Snow Goggles
at the

Vancouver Maritime Museum The Vancouver Maritime Museum is a maritime museum devoted to presenting the maritime history of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and the Canadian Arctic. Opened in 1959 as a Vancouver centennial project, it is located within Vanier Park ...

The

goggles Goggles, or safety glasses, are forms of protective eyewear that usually enclose or protect the area surrounding the eye in order to prevent particulates, water or chemicals from striking the eyes. They are used in chemistry laboratories and in ...

are traditionally made of

driftwood __NOTOC__ Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves. In some waterfront areas, driftwood is a major nuisance. However, the driftwood provides shelter and f ...

(especially

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ( taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfa ...

), bone,

walrus ivory The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the fami ...

caribou Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subsp ...

antler, or in some cases seashore grass. The workpiece is carved to fit the wearer's face, and one or more narrow horizontal slits are carved through the front.Smithsonian Institution
St. Lawrence Island Yupik Snow Goggles
/ref> The goggles fit tightly against the face so that the only light entering is through the slits, and soot is sometimes applied to the inside to help cut down on glare. The slits are made narrow not only to reduce the amount of light entering but also to improve the

visual acuity Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

. Wider slits result in a larger

field of view The field of view (FoV) is the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. Humans a ...

Terminology

Like other

Inuit language The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and adjacent subarctic, reaching farthest south in Labrador. The related Yupik languages (spoken in wester ...

words, such as inukhuk/inuksuk, a different word may be used in different dialects. In the Kivalliq dialect, (ᐃᓪᒑᒃ) is used, while the

North Baffin dialect The North Baffin dialect (''Qikiqtaaluk uannangani'' or ''Iglulingmiut'') of Inuktitut is spoken on the northern part of Baffin Island, at Igloolik and the adjacent part of the Melville Peninsula, and in other Inuit communities in the far north ...

uses (ᐃᒡᒑᒃ). Both words are also used to refer to

sunglasses Sunglasses or sun glasses (informally called shades or sunnies; more names below) are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They can ...

. In Central Yup'ik, snow goggles are called , while in Cup'ig they are ''igguag''. In

Siberian Yupik Siberian Yupiks, or Yuits (russian: Юиты), are a Yupik people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far northeast of the Russian Federation and on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. They speak Central Siberian Yupik ( ...

, the word is .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Inuit Snow Goggles Goggles

Snow goggles Snow goggles (Inuktitut: or , syllabics: or ; esu, nigaugek, ) are a type of eyewear traditionally used by the Inuit and the Yupik peoples of the Arctic to prevent snow blindness. The goggles fit tightly against the face so that the only l ...

Terminology

See also

References