Snow knife
{{Short description|Inuit tool}}
File:Inuit snow knife (forground) and woman's knife (background) - Arctic Museum.jpg in the background]]
A snow knife or snow saw (Inuktitut: pana[https://books.google.com/books?id=eD5M1_kk_I0C&dq=pana+snow+knife&pg=PA92 An Inuktitut-English Dictionary of Northern Quebec, Labrador, and Eastern Arctic Dialects (with an English-Inuktitut Index)] Lucien Schneider. 238 239. pamiulik panirsimajuq ... 6 adg (not 5e) pana
Historical descriptions
The American Association for the Advancement of Science noted in 1883:
{{blockquote|The only instrument used in the construction of the igloo is the snow-knife. Where the Inuits{{sic}} have intercourse with white men, they barter for cheese-knives or long-bladed butcher-knives, remove the double-handle from the tang, and put on a single one about three times as long, which can be readily grasped by both hands. The old knives were made of reindeer-horn or from the shin-bone of the reindeer.
Among the Esquimaux in and around King William's Land I found snow-knives made of copper stripped from Sir John Franklin's ships, the imprints of the queen's broad arrow still showing on many, the blades double-edged or dagger-shape, and the handles of musk-ox and reindeer horn rudely attached by sinew lashings.
The snow-knife of iron, while more convenient in many ways, is far more liable to break in the intense cold of the winter weather, such accidents with them being very common. I have seen igloos built when the thermometer registered −70°F. At such temperatures the snow becomes almost stone-like in its compactness. The snow-knife is often used as a substitute for the snow-tester whenever that instrument is broken or left behind, for the Esquimaux are a very careless and absentminded people.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mgj3y5qnHaQC&dq=%22snow+knife%22&pg=PA259 Science, Volume 2 By American Association for the Advancement of Science, HighWire Press, JSTOR (Organization)]}}