Snow knife facts for kids
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A snow knife or snow saw is a special tool. The Inuit people of the Arctic use it. They call it pana in their language, Inuktitut. Snow knives are mainly used to build igluit, which are snow houses. Sometimes, they were also used as weapons. Early snow knives were made from things found in nature, like bone or animal horn. Later, after Europeans arrived, the Inuit started making them from metal.
How Snow Knives Were Used
The snow knife was the main tool for building igluit. Builders would use it to cut large, strong blocks of snow. These blocks were then stacked to form the dome-shaped snow house. The knife had to be very strong and sharp to cut through hard, packed snow.
Materials for Snow Knives
In the past, snow knives were made from materials like reindeer horn or shin bones. These natural materials were strong enough for cutting snow. When Europeans came, the Inuit began to use metal. They would trade for metal knives or pieces of metal. They reshaped these into snow knives.
Metal Snow Knives
Some metal snow knives were even made from copper. This copper sometimes came from old ships, like those of Sir John Franklin. These metal knives were often double-edged, like a dagger. Handles were made from musk-ox or reindeer horn. They were tied on with animal sinew.
Metal knives were handy but could break easily in very cold weather. When it was extremely cold, like −70°F (−57°C), snow became very hard. It was almost like stone. Even then, the snow knife was used to cut the tough snow blocks.
See also
- Tomahawk
- Ulu
