Tuesday, November 30, 2010

cool website that was interesting on many different topics as well as snowgoggles

Arend, C. Alaskan Snow Goggles. Retrieved November 11, 2010, from http://images.livescience.com/imageoftheday/ria-080213.html
in this website they have a contest where they chose a picture every day to praise and gloat over. this picture was taken in 1969. but then there are links up at the top of the page where you can look over other scientific and historical topics. this website produces a magazine that is popular in the science community.

What if you were an ancient pair of snow goggles

I have once imagined being a pair of snow goggles and trying to picture floating along the wind as a seed then growing into a tall tree. then being chopped down and created to a work of art and a piece of essential equipment for hunting and surviving the harsh climate of the arctic. after that laying dormant before being collected by a man from the Smithsonian museum. after that just sitting on some shelf in the basement for hundreds of years. the almost returning home in Alaska.

Monday, November 29, 2010

One Very Interesting Article for Native American Artifacts

Kassis, K. Archive for the 'North American Tribes/Cultures' Category. Retrieved November 29, 2010, from http://ethnology.wordpress.com/category/north-american-tribescultures/
This website is a list of many different kinds of artifacts from the Native American cultures. i used it mainly for the snow goggles, but i found a lot of the information and videos very interesting. the have live whale hunting videos as well as some blanket making and archeologist dig sites. the website also has at least one picture of every artifact that is mentioned in this article.

Changing times and new places for snow goggles.

People have taken this design and improved it to the modern snow goggles that we see now. Now they often look like pieces of shadowed glass to cut the glare from the light. NASA has taken the idea of little slits in the eyes and adapted them to help the astronauts in space. since these people have taken a very simple and extremely important design and made them modern, we tend to loose our appreciation for the older and ancient technologies that our ancestors have developed.

Snow Goggles in Alaska

this is a picture of an older Inuit person wearing his pair of snow goggles. this man is from Canada. even though the oldest pair of snow goglgles has been dated for 2000 years ago. the expansion from the Bering Sea cultures to the Canadian and Northern Alaskan people has been dated at 800 years ago.

This is the website about the history of other types of sun goggles/glasses.

Drewry, R. (2007) History of Eye Glasses. Retrieved November 29, 2010, from http://www.teagleoptometry.com/history.htm

this web site is about the history of eye glasses from B.C.E. till today. The author of the web page is an optometrist and has studied the topic for a while. He goes from the water filled stones in the midievil ages till the contact lenses that a lot of people are wearing now. the information includes a few pictures as well as information on the emerald sunglasses which i found use full.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Do other places use something similar?

alot of cultures have some form of sunprotection. the Alaska Natives used snowgoggles as did many of the northern cultures of othe world. the different culture's snowgoggles look differently based on the function, culture, and time period. then some of the cultures that were farther couth like parts of china where an emporer used smoked glass to protect his eyes from the sun. then a man in Rome who used to use emerald peices to shield his eyes from the sun while he was watching gladiators.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

this is one of the websites I found very helpful in learning about the many Alaska Native objects

Smithsonian Institution. (2010). Snow Goggles. Retrieved September 9, 2010, from http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=584
this website is all about a type of Yupik snow goggle. but throughout the smithsonian site there are many types of snow goggles as well as other early Alaskan made items, like the spears, neclaces, baskets, and other really cool things. its really nice because you can look at the object with a 360 degree view.what else is nice is that they include a quote about the object from that region.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

How are they made?

The snow goggle is made with two slits for the eyes to look through and some way of securing them to your head. Traditionally Alaska Natives would start by carving a piece of wood to get the shape as well as bending the wood to get the curve of the goggles. after this they would mark where the eyes would be on the person then create the eye slits. after this they would make holes on the sides to put a piece of leather in to secure it to their head. the hardest part about making the goggles is the carving, bending, and treating of the wood in order to get the curved shape. The curved shape of the goggles had to be custom to each individual person.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Why even have snow goggles?

snow goggles are actually extremely important when you are outside, usually the winter time is the most common time to use them. when there is a blizzard or on a sunny day just after is when people need to have something to protect them. the reason is that the sunlight reflects off all the snow and makes it seem like your always looking into the sun, this causes the light to burn your cornea. so as you use the snow goggles it leaves a small slit where the light can go through, this reduces the light your corneas are exposed to as well as it heightens your vision. some of the native groups used them on sunny days as well because it did heighten your vision so well. it is similar to if you pushed you index finger and thumb on both hands together to make a diamond and then try to look through that diamond.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

My First Post

Hey i will be updating my blog throughout the course of native heritage month. it will consist of information on the Yup'ik region of Alaska and on snow goggles. the posts about snow goggles could be about any snow goggles from anywhere in the world that relate to the ones which i have found.