Alaskan natives came up with snow goggles hundreds of years ago to protect their eyes and make seeing better.
People who have spent a lot of time in the snow know how important it is to keep their eyes safe. When the sun hits white snow, it can cause snow blindness, which is a very uncomfortable condition caused by too much UV light. The people who lived in Alaska before Europeans came knew about these risks and have been making eye protection for thousands of years.
A long time ago, the Inuit and Yupik people in the Arctic cut narrow slots in ivory, antler, and wood to make snow goggles. This reduced the amount of direct and mirrored UV rays that hit the skin, which kept eyes from getting tired and stopped snow blindness.
These snow goggles look a little different from the ones you’d wear on the ski slopes. They are called ilgaak in Inuktitut and nigaugek in Central Yupik. The Inuit and Yupik people made goggles with two thin slots. They are made of a range of materials and were carved by hand. These googles are still made today. They are made from wood, bones, and even whale baleen.
The National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian has a lot of them, and they are very interesting to look at. The small holes can actually help you see better by cutting down on glare and reflection. When the slits focus the light, they work a lot like a pinhole camera and help you see better. Indigenous people in the area have used this method for a very long time. Inuit archaeological sites have found snow goggles that are up to 2,000 years old.
The goggles may be made of different materials now, like plastic, but the old-fashioned style is still there. This is a standard example of early engineering that was based on what people learned from doing things, and it works.
