Remember watching an Inuit film some years ago (called The Runner or summat) and being struck by the similarity between the sound of the Inuit language and modern Japanese. What clinched the similarity though was that the word for 'elder brother' in both languages seems to be the same. Dunno if there's an ethnic relationship but there could be.

But getting back to snow/sun specs - I guess people would arrive naturally at some sort of eye protection against strong sunlight wherever they were.