N O R T H W E S T P ARCTI C S U B A R C T I C L A T E A U G R E A T B A SIN C O A S T C A L I F O R N I A P L A I N S T S A E T H S NORT A E H SOUT ST E W H T U O S ARCTIC REGION OF NORTH AMERICA CULTURAL REGIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA Plateau Northwest Coast California Plains Southeast Southwest Great Basin Northeast Subarctic Arctic Other Cultural area border International border State province border
INTRODUCTION S edna was a beautiful young woman who lived with her father Many men in the village wanted to marry her But Sedna would not get married One day a new hunter came to the village and asked to marry Sedna She agreed He took her back to his home and she found that he was not a man at all He was a bird He couldn’t hunt and Sedna ate raw fish every day When Sedna’s father came to visit he saw that she was unhappy He decided to take her home with him in his boat But Sedna’s husband found out and flew after them He started a big storm Sedna’s father was afraid He pushed Sedna out of the boat She held on to the side of the boat So Sedna’s father chopped off her fingers one by one They fell into the sea and became fish seals walruses and whales Sedna became the goddess of the sea She sits at the bottom of the ocean If she is happy with the people she gives them lots of sea animals to hunt But if she is unhappy she makes sure the hunters are unlucky The story of Sedna is one of the most important stories of the Inuit IN-yoo-it the people who call the Arctic home and who depend on seals and whales for survival There are several different versions of this story In all of them Sedna rules the sea 5
PEOPLES OF THE ARCTIC The Arctic region is the original home of many groups of Inuit This map shows the areas where some of them lived before Europeans arrived in the region Inupiat Inupiat u’pik Yup’ik Western W Arctic Arctic Inuit Inuit Cultural area border International border State province border CULTURAL AREAS Arctic Northwest Coast Plateau Plains Northeast Subarctic Other Copper Copper Inuit Inuit Netsilik Netsilik Inuit Inuit Caribou Caribou Inuit Inuit Igloolik Igloolik Inuit Inuit Baffin Baffin Island Island Inuit Inuit Ungava Ungava Inuit Inuit Labrador Lab Inuit Inuit and her fingers become the creatures of the sea The Inuit have great respect for Sedna and the sea Whenever they hunt a seal they give thanks to Sedna A Frozen Land About 1,600 miles 2,575 kilometers south of the North Pole there is an imaginary east-west line around Earth This is called the Arctic Circle The region above that circle is called the Arctic It is one of the harshest environments on Earth The Arctic has long been home to thousands of indigenous peoples The North American part of the region covers parts of northern Alaska Yukon Territory the Northwest Territories Nunavut Quebec and Labrador in Canada and Greenland 66
Throughout Alaska Canada and Greenland most indigenous peoples are Inuit Inuit are distinct from all other American Indian nations In Canada Inuit have been divided into eight groups They are the Labrador Ungava uhn-GAH-vah Baffin Island Igloolik IH-gloo-lick Caribou Netsilik neh-sihl-leek Copper and Western Arctic Inuit Though the term Eskimo ES kih-moh is falling out of usage in Alaska it is sometimes used to describe both the Yup’ik YOO-puhk and Iñupiat in-YOO pee-aht Their relations the Aleut AH-lee-yoot also live in the southern part of this region The term Aleut refers to both the Alutiiq ah-LOO-tick and Unangax uhn-AIN-gax peoples in Alaska The Arctic is one of the harshest environments on Earth The sun does not set from May to August and summers are so cold that there can still be ice and snow in June 7
