Seal Retrievers
date: label: Accession Date
content: 27 Jan 1910
name: label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Department Of Interior
notes: label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. Seal retriever # 1 of 3 only is on loan.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on E260557, # 1 of 3, https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=316 , retrieved 1-5-2022; see web page for additional information: Seal retriever, Inupiaq. Length 30 cm.. Swimming seals shot with a rifle can be recovered before they sink with a wooden retriever attached to a rope or leather line. The method is to swing the retriever in a circle and cast it so that it lands just beyond the floating animal. A strong jerk embeds the sharp metal hooks and the seal can then be pulled in. As firearms became available to Iñupiaq men in Northwest Alaska, they adapted their hunting methods to fit the new technology. Older hunting weapons continued to be used in certain situations, and newly invented tools, such as the seal retriever, made rifle hunting more effective. Edward Nelson noted in 1881 that both firearms and traditional weapons were employed to hunt seals, walruses and belugas in the Bering Strait region. John Murdoch reported that by 1883 most hunters in the Barrow area used firearms obtained from American commercial whaling vessels. Seal harpoons were used exclusively to secure animals that had already been shot with rifles in open water leads by the ice edge. By 1913, Diamond Jenness reported that hunters in Barrow shot seals with guns and pulled them to shore with a tool like the seal retriever pictured here, which he described as "a light grappling hook fastened to the end of a long pole or line." The use of seal retrievers was reported by other visitors to the coast of Northwest Alaska from the 1890s to mid-1900s. According to H. R. Thornton-at Wales from 1890 to 1893-hunters retrieved seals shot in open water using a tool that he described as "a heavy pear-shaped piece of wood, about 10 inches long and 3 inches wide . . . with four well-sharpened spikes in it, which are bent in the form of hooks," which was fastened to a "coil of sealskin thong." James VanStone, at Point Hope from 1955 to 1956, explained that after rifles became available, men began to focus their seal hunting at open water leads in the pack ice. Seals shot at their breathing holes were often swept away under the ice, whereas those killed in open water could easily be recovered with the "drag line"- another name for a seal retriever. The method was to swing the retriever in a circle and cast it so that the end landed just beyond the floating animal. A strong jerk on the line embedded the hook, and it could be pulled in.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 12 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 3
place: label: Place
content: Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inupiaq
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 051115
label: USNM Number
content: E260557-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Seal Retriever