Snow goggles were designed to reduce the amount of sunlight reflecting off the snow, preventing snow blindness when outdoors. Snow blindness is essentially a sunburn of the eyes, and vision can be affected for a few days if precautions are not taken. Snow blindness is scientifically known as photokeratitis.
Many Inuit groups made snow goggles to combat this issue, sometimes out of bone, ivory, or, like the ones shown, wood. Imagine traveling across the snow-covered tundra on a bright day without sunglasses, and you can see why snow goggles were invented. The small slits reduce the field of vision and the amount of ultraviolet radiation that reaches the eyes.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of James A. Houston, 1969
An Inuit wearing native snow goggles. ( 2L.T. Burwash / Library and Archives Canada / PA-099362)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of James A. Houston, 1969
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of James A. Houston, 1969
Inuit sunglasses dating back to between 1200 AD and 1600 AD.
In 2006, Christie’s auctioned off this pair of ancient Punuk Inuit ivory snow goggles from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.
Artifact from The Manitoba Museum (HBC 98-1349) / Photo by Andrew Workman
Inuit snow goggles and wooden case. (Wellcome Collection)
