This tool for scooping ice out of a hole was made in the first half of the 20th century. It originated in the Onega Uyezd of the Arkhangelsk Governorate. Such a tool was necessary on the coast of the White Sea in winter when a strip of several kilometers of ice extended from the shore to the open water.

Villagers would go out on the ice to catch navaga, smelt, and herring using winter fishing rods. To do so, they would make holes in the ice. Depending on the thickness of the ice, they used ice chisels of different lengths. They also needed a tool for scooping broken ice out of the hole.

Having punched a hole in the ice with a chisel, a Pomor fisherman would clean the hole from ice fragments, using an ice skimmer. In the 19th century, such skimmers were often made of wood. The working surface of the skimmer was coated with tar so that it would absorb less water and freeze less. In the first half of the 20th century, when metal wire of different diameters appeared in villages, fishermen began to make ice skimmers in the form of a ring with a metal mesh on a wooden handle.

With an ice scoop or an ice skimmer, a fisherman would regularly clean the hole from the thin layer of ice that had formed on it. In order to make it easier to catch fish at different distances from the shore as they moved with the incoming water, fishermen would make several holes along the path of their movement. They would clean the first hole regularly with a scoop. If the navaga were actively biting, then the hole would not become covered with ice. Simultaneously, the other holes, which had been punched ahead of time, would get covered with a thin layer of ice, especially if it was snowing. When the fish moved beyond the first hole towards the shore, the fisherman would move on to the next hole, break the thin ice with a shovel, and scoop the ice out.

If the ice had managed to grow thicker at the last hole, an ice chisel was used once again to break it up into smaller pieces. To help prevent hands from freezing while working with water, special knitted Russian mittens were used that did not stretch when wet. An ice scoop or skimmer was part of the essential equipment of every Pomor fisherman. It was made of wood or metal depending on the financial situation and skill level.