Magic Forests wrote:
Are these slippers or shoes?
Cute or not?

I'll bet you think vegetarian chili is real chili too, don't you?



Best answer - slipper socks...

Tropic Light wrote:
They're cute, but they're not real mukluks unless they're made by Inuits out of sealskin or reindeer hide.

She'd have to go to Canada to buy them and then smuggle them back here as it is illegal to import sealskin fur into the USA.  It's actually illegal to import any product made from seals.

Magic Forests wrote:
Are these slippers or shoes?

boots.

Tropic Light wrote:
They're cute, but they're not real mukluks unless they're made by Inuits out of sealskin or reindeer hide.

Correct. Though the Inuit word for them is Kamiks. They are referred to as Mukluks by Canadian indigenous northern peoples but the Inuit do use the word now.

In Canada they can be made from other fur too.

Sealskin has the benefit of being waterproof whereas caribou skin isn't. So they are worn while hunting on the ice floes.

The EEC made Inuit sealskin produce exempt from the ban and many. European arctic scientists buy sealskin mukluks from the Inuit as a sign of solidarity with them. Seal are not endangered and have been sustainably hunted with respect by the Inuit for thousands of years. There is a terrible irony that their trade in this has been sabotaged by nations who are contributing destroying their environment through our greed for fossil fuel; and who have polluted our own seas having a massively detrimental effect on seal population. By contrast the Inuit have millions of seal in their waters. The meat is eaten so ethically it is no different to beef-leather. I have eaten Inuit seal meat and blubber.

I have worked in Greenland and everyone who has recognises the US ban has caused the Inuit terrible economic hardship. There is no ban on Inuit sealskin in the EEC so I shall be buying a pair on my next visit. They are expensive or I would have already bought. I have bought reindeer and fox fur produce from them and the Saami and have Evenk and Nennets reindeer and fox  fur produce too. This is the only economic activity of the very peoples who have protected the delicate arctic environment for thousands of years through their lifestyle. It is in their interest the animals are plentiful. Without that trade those cultures are doomed as is the environment and the animals. To persecute a culture with misplaced and hypocritical concern for animals is a gross injustice and one which most arctic academics object to strongly.
Here is an interview with Inuit rock singer Lucie Idlout who wears sealskin on stage as protest on what has been done to the Inuit re their trade.
http://www.dancooper.tv/fashionfinds_19 … lout_2.htm

So to the op: no they are not technically mukluks.

Eliza C  new portfolio wrote:
I have bought reindeer and fox fur produce from them and the Saami and have Evenk and Nennets reindeer and fox  fur produce too.

Seals - killed quickly and with little pain.
Reindeer - domestic cattle - killed humanely

A fox with its leg in a gin trap though is an obscenity; I'd ask you to reconsider your support of that way of hunting.

Lumen Sky wrote:
no hurting seals please

...but they smell really bad.
I wanna punch them for being smelly.

Magic Forests wrote:
Cute or not?

Not.

Virtual Studio wrote:
Seals - killed quickly and with little pain.
Reindeer - domestic cattle - killed humanely

A fox with its leg in a gin trap though is an obscenity; I'd ask you to reconsider your support of that way of hunting.

They use humane traps these days.
And that has nothing to do with the ops thread. We can chat about it by pm if you like though I'm busy atm.