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Inuit boots, pre-1963

Kamiik

Cape Dorset, West Baffin Island, Nunavut

Seal fur, sinew

Pair of fur boots with heart design round top

Some people wear their heart on their sleeve. The owner of these boots wore hearts all around their legs!

These kamiik, or boots, each feature a line of hearts around the upper calf. Hearts are not a conventional Inuit motif, and their incorporation into these traditional boots suggests a more whimsical, rather than purely practical, creation. The artistry that went into their manufacture is evident down to the smallest details - from the meticulous stitches which attach the heart designs to the band of white sealskin, to the attention paid in aligning the direction of the different furs. The heart designs must have added considerable sewing time to the manufacture of the boots, which normally take an experienced seamstress a full day to make.

These boots were gifted to the museum in 1963 by Mrs Hinds. The following is an excerpt from their history file:

'These beautifully worked women's kamiik - summer boots worn by Inuit in Canada's Arctic - were made by Anna, daughter of Kingwatsiak in Cape Dorset, West Baffin Island. They were made from the skin of a silver jar seal in a traditional appliqué decoration. The sole is of the tougher udjuk, or square flipper seal. They were sewn with caribou sinew which swells when wet, thus filling the needle hole in the seal skin and preventing damp from penetrating the seams. The skins are almost entirely waterproof'

Detail of hearts on boot
Detail of the heart design on one boot

Whether the heart designs made the wearer more romantic or not is not known, but hopefully the boots stopped them from getting cold feet when they went on dates.

Further information

Accession number 1963.327.1

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