Copper is a malleable metal that the Inuit incorporated into a number of tools and implements. Various points, blades, hooks, and fastening pins (rivets) were the creations of their survival instinct and ingenuity.

The Copper Inuit (centrally located in Canada’s Northwest Territories) worked raw copper ore without the use of high heat. Other groups salvaged manufactured copper from the abandoned ships of ill-fated European expeditions.

Such a piece of plate copper is evident on this long-handled snow knife (obviously put to other uses when not building an igloo). Exclusively Inuit in design, it features a double-edged copper blade set and riveted into an ivory (faux walrus tusk) haft. The hide wrapping and T-shaped caribou antler pommel enhance the grip when used with mittens in freezing conditions.

Illustration by Frederic Back from the book INUIT, Glimpses of an Arctic Past by the Canadian Museum of Civilization

Length 21” $1,800