NUNA HEAT MAKEOVER
Our best-selling hand warmers get a re-design!
Our Nuna Heat hand warmers are a crowd-pleaser and family favourite: four grams of ultra-soft, wonderfully warm and insulating qiviut fibre to keep your fingers and toes cozy when the temperature dips.
Did you know that muskox have lived in the Arctic for at least 90,000 years? Even in the deepest cold of the ancient Ice Ages, the muskox herds survived on island refugia--because of their qiviut. This fibre is natural and biodegradable, yet also incredibly sophisticated, trapping heat with an amazing efficiency earned through millennia of freezing temperatures.
raw qiviut fibre, freshly combed
Qiviut Inc. was founded because of our love of this natural fibre from home. Where we are from in the Arctic NWT, the muskox is still an important part of our traditional food system--and the muskox's fibre has helped to keep us warm, for generations, in even the coldest winter conditions. Inuvialuit have used muskox hides as mattresses and to sew warm clothing, while the qiviut fibre has filled the warmest parkas and quilts--and even to this day continues to line our mitts, boots, and pockets!
our original Nuna Heat packaging
Our original Nuna Heat hand warmer was inspired by this traditional use of qiviut. You'll remember our adorable package label with the clever cut-outs that the qiviut fibre could peek through? We are still very fond of it!
But we are also always working to improve the sustainability of our business, and it had long been a dream to develop some plastic-free packaging for our biodegradable hand warmers....
This summer, thanks to a partnership with the Western Arctic Youth Collective, we were able to collaborate with Lexis Panigaq McDonald (he/she/they), an Inuvialuk/Dene artist and graphic designer from Inuvik.
Lexis Panigaq McDonald
Lex worked at the mill this summer--and they also lent their outstanding graphic design skills to our labels! We love what they came up with. So this fall, we were able to re-launch our Nuna Heat hand warmers in a biodegradable paper package.
Nuna Heat new front label design by Lexis
In addition, we introduced a variation on our original hand warmer: Nuna Heat RAW!
Nuna Heat RAW front label design by Lexis
Whereas our original hand warmer contains a single unbroken four-gram strip of combed (brushed) qiviut fibre, our Nuna Heat RAW hand warmers look a bit more like the fibre that we grew up with: a beautiful, soft fluffy cloud. The two hand warmers contain the same fibre and work in nearly identical ways, but the original Nuna Heat carded hand warmer, with its pretty smoothness, requires a few more mill labour hours at the carding machine (and it also includes a cute little carrying pouch).
One Nuna Heat (original)
This year, we also offered a wildly popular, limited edition Nuna Heat Hands & Feet double-pack for a discounted price. There are still a few of these packages remaining, but once they're gone, they're gone, so if you would like a generous eight grams of hand-warming qiviut for a good price, grab one now!
Nuna Heat Hands & Feet (8 grams of qiviut!)
Finally, we were honoured to team up this holiday season with Bear Claw Beaver Hills, an Indigenous-led outreach initiative operating in Edmonton, to donate a half-kilo of qiviut fibre in the form of hand warmers to our neighbours in need. Here's the 123 hand warmers we distributed at Boyle Street Plaza's Holiday Extravaganza on December 20th--with the help of our customers!
qiviut hand warmers for donation
It has been an exciting year for our hand warmers, and we hope that they keep you very warm during the winter months ahead. We'd love to know: how are your Nuna Heats working for you? Drop us a line via email (qiviutinc@gmail.com), on social media, or leave us a google review!