A video of an Inuit woman revealing her view through snow blinders has gone viral on TikTok.
The clip was shared by @marikasila, the Instagram account of Inuit actor Marika Sila, and has had 6.6 million views since it was first shared on January 25.
The video was also shared from her TikTok account @thatwarriorprincess, where it has had 39.6 million views since it was posted on January 29. The footage was captured in Canmore, a town in the Canadian province of Alberta, around 65 miles west of Calgary, Sila told Newsweek.
The video shows Sila wearing snow blinders, which are traditional eyewear worn by the Inuit people to help protect their eyes from the reflection of the snow and prevent snow blindness. They feature a narrow horizontal slit at its center to allow you to see amid snowfall.
The clip shows Sila taking her snow blinders off and placing them over the camera. The camera then captures the narrow view through the slit in the eyewear, which shows snow blowing across a waterfront overlooked by snow-dusted mountains.
Sila is an Inuvialuk actor, influencer and activist from Yellowknife, the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories. An Inuvialuk is an Inuit person who lives in the western Canadian Arctic region.
As of 2021, there are reported to be 70,545 Inuit people living in Canada, according to Statistics Canada, a Canadian government website.
In the same year, around 69 percent of all Inuit people in Canada were found to live in Inuit Nunangat, including in the western Arctic such as the Northwest Territories and Yukon, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia.
What Are Snow Blinders?
The traditional snow goggles have been around for thousands of years among the indigenous people of the Alaskan region and can be traced back to the Yupik people, one of Alaska's indigenous inhabitants, according to a January 2020 article in The Smithsonian.
According to a previous TikTok video shared by Sila, snow blinders are hand-carved from either antler or bone, as demonstrated by her father in the clip.
Ann Fienup-Riordan, an Anchorage-based anthropologist who works with the Yupik people to develop exhibits and books about their culture, noted in the article that the slit in the snow blinders focuses the light, similar to the way a pinhole camera works.
This results in objects that are far off appearing sharper and your vision being "much, much better," she said in the article.
'How Cool'
Users on Instagram were impressed by the snow blinders in the viral clip.
User clousemouse92 said: "I bet it's like seeing in high definition, without the eye strain!! How cool, snow blinders!"
Virginiarachelfrancis wrote: "Love this. It's like squinting, to protect the eyes, but without the eye strain."
Manu_zaz13 said: "Wow, that's so interesting! Thank you for sharing your culture."
TikTokers were also amazed, such as StrelitziaChi, who wrote: "So it works similar way [that] having eyes squinted helps, but doesn't tire eyes! Clever!!"
@hashtag.turtles wrote: "OMG these look so useful..."
Unbelibrable said: "My sensitive eyes need this for everyday."
KC said: "The camera doesn't do it justice. You should try them out in real life on a sunny bright day in winter."
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Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Soo Kim is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. She covers various lifestyle stories, specializing in travel and health.
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