Alaska Native Collections – Sharing Knowledge

2005

Aron Crowell: So what about snowshoes, is that something people use today?

Nicolai Etteyne: Yes, they do. The people up north still use it, because in Chukchi they call [says Chukchi word]. In English is called “raven legs.” You can see it’s tall in the back.

Aron Crowell: Is this like a Chukchi style?

Nicolai Etteyne: Yes, a Chukchi style. It’s made from ugruk [bearded seal] skin. And they use reindeer skins – easy to walk through deep snow. Hunters use it. They stand on the snow and not sink through.

Aron Crowell: What kind of wood? Do you make it from driftwood?

Nicolai Etteyne: They make it from driftwood, or in the tundra they have small trees and find pieces to make. You have to always watch for wood – some for snowshoes, some for sleds, and maybe yuranga.

(1) Your eyes have to be open for anything.

[From a consultation utilizing object images with Nicolai Etteyne, Chukchi culture bearer, on March 31, 2005 at the Anchorage Museum. Mr. Etteyne was born in Eastern Siberian Arctic coastal village of Neshkan on the Chukchi Peninsula and currently resides in Anadyr, in the Chukotka region of Siberia. Also participating: Aron Crowell (NMNH).]

1. A yuranga is a traditional Siberian Native home, circular in shape and made with a whale-rib frame covered with reindeer hides. According to Nicholas Etteyne it is used by reindeer herdsmen and is a “removable house . . . covered in reindeer hides they sew together, big cover. They live in sleeping room made from reindeer hides also.”