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
The Inuit and Aleut groups all speak different dialects of the Eskimo-Aleut language family This language family includes many dialects of Inuit Yup’ik and Aleut languages Across the Arctic region there are many different languages but they are all related The closer Inuit groups live to one another the more similar their languages are Peoples of the North Inuit arrived in Alaska about eleven thousand years ago They spread to the Canadian Arctic about four thousand years ago They then also spread to Greenland Inuit hunted and fished for food and made clothes from sealskins and caribou skins They traveled across the ice with dogsleds and paddled across open water in kayaks After long cold days of work Inuit had Inuit often traveled over the ice using sleds and teams of Arctic dogs 88
Many people in the Arctic use snowmobiles to get around like these people in the Arctic city of Iqaluit Nunavut fun They held contests and wrestling matches to develop endurance And they gathered to sing songs and tell stories About 160,000 Inuit still live in the Arctic They continue to survive by hunting and fishing But like other North Americans Inuit travel in airplanes motorboats cars snowmobiles and all terrain vehicles They live in houses watch television and buy things on the Internet Inuit learned to live on the frozen tundra and sea ice They survived howling winds blowing snow and deadly cold They may live in one of the coldest places on Earth but Inuit continue to thrive in the Arctic region near the very top of Earth 9
