Textile & Costume, Criticism, Crafts & Hobbies, Engineering 

The Arctic region combines a landscape of severe beauty with one of the harshest winter climates in the world, and the Inuit who live there have become skilled in the art of making clothes and footwear to keep them warm and dry. Indeed, without skin boots, which are made exclusively by Inuit women, survival on the land would be impossible.

Jill Oakes and Rick Riewe have lived and worked with Inuit seamstresses and hunters, and here share what they have learned about the Inuit's crafts and their lives. They provide a brief overview of Inuit history, and describe the vital role that skin footwear plays in the rigors of the Arctic environment. There are also discussions of tools and techniques, the creation of patterns, and the numerous boot styles that have evolved, along with intimate details of daily life in the Arctic.

But the main focus of the book is on the boots themselves. Drawing on the unparalleled collection of Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum, the splendid color photographs reveal a unique women's craft and a remarkable way of life.