Canadian Arctic
1.Read page 23 about Food and Housing. What kind of foods do the Arctic People eat? Would you eat the same food? Describe what their housing looks like? Could you live in the Arctic?
Arctic People eat whitefish, Arctic Char and trout, walrus, white whales and some caribou. They hunted Canadian and blue geese, ducks, sea pigeons, gulls, terns and gathered eggs and berries. But at Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay there were few birds or caribou or fish; instead their diet was restricted to mainly seals, walrus and polar bear.
Nowadays, the foods that modern people eat are similar to Arctic People’s. For example, we also eat ducks, sea pigeons and gulls.
The Canadian Arctic was one of the coldest and most unforgiving environments on Earth. Winters were long and cold, often with little light. Therefore, the people of the Arctic were forced to adapt to the harsh surroundings in order to survive. Their housings are built depends on the seasons. In summer, they live in Summer Inuit Tents. During the summer, the Inuit built tents out of driftwood or poles cover with animal skins, mostly caribou or sealskin. These tents are like the Plains tipis. Inuit families will follow the hunt in winter. They need a shelter that would keep them warm, and protect them from the harsh winter weather. The most common winter shelter was a snowhouse , more commonly known as an ‘igloo’. An igloo was a temporary, dome-shaped shelter made out of snow blocks.
I couldn’t live in Arctic because the weather in winter is too cold to afford. It’s hard for me to live there.
2.Look at page 32. Why are people relocating all the time?
The Inuit lived nomadic lifestyles, so they did not stay in one place for an extended period of time. Also,since hunting and fishing was their main source of food, they were forced to move around, following the seasonal migration patterns of area animals.
In addition, there is a certain time period 1953-55 form the map on page 32. At that time, the Canadian government decides to relocate
Inuit from northern Quebec to Resolute Bay and Craig Harbour, partly for sovereignty reasons to establish an Inuit population in otherwise uninhabited lands. Therefore, the Inuit are forced to relocated. So, they sometimes forced relocate because of some political factors.
3.Look at page 34. Why are there so many Indigenous peoples of the Arctic countries? Did the number surprise you? Yes or No? Why or Why not?
Arctic indigenous peoples include for example Saami in circumpolar areas of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Northwest Russia, Nenets, Khanty, Evenk and Chukchi in Russia, Aleut, Yupik and Inuit (Iñupiat) in Alaska, Inuit (Inuvialuit) in Canada and Inuit (Kalaallit) in Greenland. The proportion indigenous people is estimated to be about 10 percent of total population living in arctic areas. Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Arctic for thousands of years. As a result of that , they have tons of descendants. That’s why there are so many indigenous peoples of the Arctic countires.
Actually, the number doesn’t surprise me since compares to China , the population of indigenous in Arctic is quite smaller than China’s .
There are 8 groups indigenous in Arctic. But China has 56 groups indigenous. That’s a lot.
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