Snow wrestling

This soapstone carving of two Inuit wrestlers is the work of Johnny Poot, an Inuit carver from Canada.
Wrestling was a favourite sport among the Inuit and took many forms including leg wrestling, finger wrestling and chair wrestling. Then, there are the pulls. The arm pull, wrist pull and finger pulls are sort of like arm wrestling, but opponents face each other, lock arms, wrists or fingers and have to try to pull the opponent out of position. Then there are pulls involving a seal skin chord -- the neck, ear and foot pulls, for example -- where the chord is wrapped around a particular part of the body and contestants have to try to pull their opponent across a line. And for the very hardy, there's the mouth pull. Contestants stand side by side, with their inside feet touching and a line drawn on the floor between them. Each competitor reaches around the head of his or her opponent with the inside arm and puts his middle finger inside the outside cheek of the opponent. The competitors pull on their opponents cheek until one crosses the line. Lots of ways to while away those long winter nights!