Arctic Remix: Part 2
Arctic Remix considers how Indigenous technologies have informed, inspired, or anticipated modern-day design and technology innovations.
Indigenous peoples of the Arctic possessed an intimate knowledge of their environment, creating many adaptive tools for surviving and thriving through seasonal change. Many of these inventions reveal an economy of design and ingenious use of natural materials.
Mass production, synthetic materials, and modern day concerns change how we interface with objects as well as with our environment. Objects highlighted in this exhibition point to what has changed, what has been remixed, and what has stayed the same.
Snow Goggles by Steve McCutcheon and Edward RemickAnchorage Museum
Snow Goggles
Living in the Arctic winter, a real fear exists of what is called snow blindness–a painful, temporary loss of vision due to overexposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. This causes a sunburn on the cornea of the eye.
With the springtime return of the sun, Alaskan Native peoples living in areas with little tree cover were especially susceptible to snow blindness. They adapted by inventing snow googles.
With small slits serving as the eyeholes, the goggles not only protected the wearer’s eyes, but they also focused the incoming light, allowing for hunters to see farther. The wrap-around shape also shielded the eyes from light seeping in at the edges.
Modern mountain climbing and polar expedition sunglasses mimic this design feature of snow goggles. One big advantage is the fact that, unlike sunglasses or ski googles, Native-made snow goggles never fog up and you don’t have to worry about scratching the lenses.
Halibut Hook by Tlingit artist, Transferred from the Hastings Museum, Hastings, NE, Anchorage Museum Collection, 1970.10.2Anchorage Museum
Halibut Hooks
The wooden halibut hook is a fishing technology that has been used for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America.
The V-shaped hook is expertly engineered to catch the massive fish and is often carved with an image on the arm intended to entice a halibut to swallow the hook whole. The hook is designed to catch in the cheek when the hook is spit out.
The overall construction of the hook involves expert craftsmanship, including calibration of the tensile strength of cedar rope, which is used for the line.
Halibut Hooks by Tlingit artist and Thomas GeorgeAnchorage Museum
The hook itself is often constructed using two different types of wood (one heavy and one lighter for buoyancy), and the angle between the upper and lower arms of the hook is measured using the carver’s thumb.
Although there are few fishermen who still fish with wooden halibut hooks, there are carvers teaching people how to make and use the hooks as a process of cultural revitalization.
Halibut Hook by Tlingit artist, Transferred from the Hastings Museum, Hastings, NE, Anchorage Museum Collection, 1970.10.2Anchorage Museum
In February 2018, the wooden halibut hook was inducted into the Alaska Innovators Hall of Fame, the first Indigenous tool to be honored, due to its continued artistic and environmental relevance after centuries of use.
To learn more and see the full Arctic Remix online exhibition visit: https://www.anchoragemuseum.org/exhibits/arctic-remix/
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