Although it rarely causes permanent vision loss, snow blindness is a painful condition caused by overexposing the eyes to snow-reflected sunlight. Inuits figured this out about 2,000 years ago, when they first developed igaak –inuit snow goggles. The first igaak examples were carved out of caribou antlers, the only suitable local material at the time. Wooden examples appeared centuries later, when increasing mobility and travel made wood available. The new material was a lighter, easier to carve, alternative to the hard -and durable- bone. Yet, centuries-old wooden igaak have been preserved to date in excellent condition, after years of being used in some of the harshest inhabited environments on Earth. The design of igaak is brilliant: a segment of material, hollowed in the back, sometimes purely rectangular and massive, sometimes markedly close in form to some of the high-fashion sunglasses as we know them today. Most types of igaak are slightly curved, designed to adapt to the user’s face snugly. They are fastened to the back of the head by a cord usually made of caribou sinew or leather. There is something intriguing about the way this ancient object fulfills its function: the user’s field of vision is restricted to what can be perceived through a narrow slit –of just a few millimeters- that radically reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the user’s eyes. It also frames the field of vision in an unusual way: it is like seeing the world from a small crack in the wall.
