A little family history in this pic. The two smaller "Ulus" belonged to, and were used by my grandmother. "Ulu" is "woman's knife". These would've been everyday tools she used in her kitchen preparing meals for her family.
The larger ulu is one that my father made for my mother. As you can guess, the blades are made from an old/dull hand saw. The handle on this one is ivory.
I met an old gent in the village my grandmother grew up in called Noatak (No-tack), it's about 100 miles N/NE of Kotzebue, AK (Side note, the village of Noorvik... on the TV Show "Life Below Zero" is just east of Kotzebue). My dad and I flew to Noatak so I could see where some of my family is from. While we were wandering around, I see this ol' gent sittin' outside in the sunshine puttering. I learned he's making ulus. So... I wander on down, introduce myself, and who I'm related to, and tell him I'd always wanted to learn how the old timers made ulus. He invited me to sit down and join him while he worked. He reaches under his stool and pulls out a Dremel, turns it on and lets his little cutting wheel go to work. When he finished making his cut and shut off his tool... I said to him, "So.... THAT'S how the old timers do it !!!" He smiled, nodded and said "Yup".
Now, the sheath knife in the pic... is my pride and joy. Hand made by my father as a Christmas gift to me. The bastard file (that became the blade) came from inside an old shed in "Noorvik" (Nor-vik). The sheath is birch wood from the village of Kobuk (further NE from Noatak). The brass pommel is made from an old outboard motor propeller nut that dad found on the beach in Kotzebue. The scales are walrus ivory and baleen. The sheath was split/formed and glued back together... and is a friction fit (holding the blade)affair. The belt loop is carved into the wood. One of these days I'm gonna make a leather sheath for this knife. I've got some raw ivory, and may use some for the sheath some how... haven't decided yet.
The pocket watch... that was my grandfather's. The inside of the gold case says "Sears Roebuck & Co" (true to anything coming from the arctic... you ordered it from the catalog and waited for the barge in spring). The watch chain... gold nuggets my grandmother panned from a stream in Nome and had made into a chain for him. Years later, I'd felt bad that the watch had skipped my dad and gone to me... so, I gave it to him. It's mine once again though.