The wide, wooden shovel was used to fill gaps between snow blocks while building a snow house. Owing to the difficulty of procuring a piece of wood large enough for the manufacture of such an object, it was one of the Copper Eskimo household's most precious possessions. Lashings of rawhide were used to prevent cracks in the wood from spreading. The contact area of the shovel was protected from damage by an edging of bone which was lashed to the wood through several holes. A handle near the middle of the face was made from a section of antler, pushed through two holes and pegged.
The antler snow knife was sometimes used to chop snow for filling in gaps between the snow blocks, and also to cut blocks of snow for the cooking pot (illustration 21). The shape of this knife is identical to those used in the Hudson Bay area for scraping ice from kayaks.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (S580-256)
