Author: Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Title: My Life With The Eskimo
Book Description: Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. Signed by Author. Signed and inscribed by author. Binding weak.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was an Arctic explorer and ethnologist. He was born in Manitoba, Canada.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson (November 3, 1879 – August 26, 1962) was an Arctic explorer and ethnologist. He was born in Manitoba, Canada.
Early life and education
Stefansson, born William Stephenson, was born at Arnes, Manitoba, Canada, in 1879. His parents had emigrated from Iceland to Manitoba two years earlier. After losing two children during a period of devastating flooding, the family moved to Dakota Territory in 1880 and homesteaded a mile southwest of the village of Mountain in Thingvalla Township of Pembina County.
He was educated at the universities of North Dakota and of Iowa (A.B., 1903). During his college years, in 1899, he changed his name to Vilhjalmur Stefansson. He studied anthropology at the graduate school of Harvard University, where for two years he was an instructor.
Early explorations
In 1904 and 1905, Stefansson did archaeological research in Iceland. Recruited by Ejnar Mikkelsen and Ernest de Koven Leffingwell for their Anglo-American Polar Expedition, he lived with the Inuit of the Mackenzie River Delta during the winter of 1906–1907, returning alone across country via the Porcupine and Yukon rivers.
Under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, he and Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson undertook the ethnological survey of the central Arctic coasts of the shores of North America from 1908 to 1912.
In 1908, Stefansson made a decision that would affect the rest of his time in Alaska: he hired Natkusiak, an Inuk guide, who would remain with him as his primary guide for the rest of his Alaska expeditions.[1] At the time he met Natkusiak, the Inuk guide was working for Capt. George B. Leavitt, a Massachusetts whaling ship captain and friend of Stefansson's who sometimes brought him replenishments of supplies from the American Museum of Natural History.[2]
Christian Klengenberg is first credited to have introduced the term "Blonde Eskimo" to Stefansson just before Stefansson's visit to the Inuit inhabiting southwestern Victoria Island, Canada, in 1910. Stefansson, though, preferred the term “Copper Inuit“ (although there was already a group of people known by that name) .[3] Adolphus Greely in 1912 first compiled the sightings recorded in earlier literature of fair-haired Arctic natives and in 1912 published them in the National Geographic Magazine entitled "The Origin of Stefansson's Blonde Eskimo". Newspapers subsequently popularised the term "Blonde Eskimo", which caught more readers' attention despite Stefansson's preference for “Copper Inuit”. Stefansson later referenced Greely's work in his writings and the term "Blonde Eskimo" became applied to sightings of fair-haired Inuit from as early as the 17th century.[4]
Loss of the Karluk and rescue of survivors
Further information: Last voyage of the Karluk
Stefansson organized and directed the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913–1916 to explore the regions west of Parry Archipelago for the Government of Canada. Three ships, the Karluk, the Mary Sachs, and the Alaska were employed.
Stefansson left the main ship, the Karluk, when it became marooned in the ice in August/September 1913. Stefansson's explanation was that he and five other expedition members left to go hunting to provide fresh meat for the crew.[5] However, William Laird McKinley and others who were left on the ship suspected Stefansson left deliberately, anticipating that the ship would be carried off by moving ice, as indeed happened. The ship, with Captain Robert Bartlett of Newfoundland and 24 other expedition members aboard, drifted westward with the ice and was eventually crushed. It sank on January 11, 1914. Four of the survivors made their way to Herald Island but eventually died there, possibly from carbon monoxide poisoning, before they could be rescued. Four others, including Alistair Mackay who had been part of the Nimrod Expedition (British Antarctic Expedition, 1907–09), led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, tried reaching Wrangel Island on their own but perished. The remaining members of the expedition, under command of Captain Bartlett, made their way to Wrangel Island[5] where three of them died. Bartlett and the Inuk hunter Kataktovik made their way across sea ice to Siberia to get help. The remaining survivors were picked up by the King & Winge, an American fishing schooner and the USRC Bear, a cutter of the United States Revenue Cutter Service in September 1914.[6]
Stefansson resumed his explorations by sledge over the Arctic Ocean (known locally as the Beaufort Sea), leaving Collinson Point, Alaska in April 1914. A supporting sledge turned back 75 mi (121 km) offshore, but he and two men continued onward on one sledge, living largely by his rifle on polar game for 96 days until his party reached the Mary Sachs in the autumn. Stefansson continued exploring until 1918.
Wrangel Island fiasco
In 1921, he encouraged and planned an expedition for four young men to colonise Wrangel Island north of Siberia, where the eleven survivors of the 22 men on the Karluk had lived from March to September 1914. Stefansson had designs for forming an exploration company that would be geared towards individuals interested in touring the Arctic island.
Stefansson originally wanted to claim Wrangel Island for the Canadian government.[5] However, due to the dangerous outcome of his initial trip to the island, the government refused to assist with the expedition. He then wanted to claim the land for Britain but the British government rejected the claim when it was made by the young men of the expedition. The raising of the British flag on Wrangel Island, an acknowledged Russian territory, caused an international incident.[5]
The four young men Stefansson recruited, Americans, Frederick Maurer, E. Lorne Knight, and Milton Galle, and Canadian Allan Crawford, were inadequately experienced and ill-equipped for the expedition. All perished on the island or in an attempt to get help from Siberia across the frozen Chukchi Sea. The only survivors were Ada Blackjack, an Iñupiat woman the men had hired in Nome, Alaska as a seamstress and taken with them as a cook, and the expedition's cat, Vic. Ada Blackjack had taught herself survival skills and cared for the last man on the island, E. Lorne Knight, until he died of scurvy. Blackjack was not rescued until 1923, having spent a total of two years on Wrangel Island.[5] Stefansson drew the ire of the public and the families of the men who perished for having sent such ill-equipped young explorers to Wrangel. His reputation was severely tainted by this disaster, along with that of the Karluk.[5]
Discoveries
Stefansson produced the first written records of several places, such as Brock, Mackenzie King, Borden, Meighen, and Lougheed Islands[7] and the edge of the continental shelf. He extended the works of Francis Leopold McClintock. From April 1914 to June 1915 he lived on the ice pack. Stefansson continued his explorations leaving from Herschel Island on August 23, 1915.
On January 30, 1920, The Pioche Record reported that Stefansson discovered a lost cache from the 1853 McClintock expedition on Melville Island. Clothing and food from the cache was in excellent condition despite the harsh Arctic conditions.[8]
In 1921, he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his explorations of the Arctic.[9] He was also an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[10][11]
Later career
Stefansson remained a well-known explorer for the rest of his life. Late in life, through his affiliation with Dartmouth College (he was Director of Polar Studies), he became a major figure in the establishment of the United States Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire. CRREL-supported research, often conducted in winter on the forbidding summit of Mount Washington, was key to developing matériel and doctrine to support alpine conflict.
Stefansson joined the Explorers Club in 1908, four years after its founding. He later served as Club President twice: 1919–1922 and 1937–1939. In the all-male Club, the Board drew attention under Stefansson's reign when it put forth an amendment to its by-laws in 1938 that read: "A Woman's Roll of Honor shall be instituted to which the Board of Directors may name women of the United States and Canada in recognition of the noteworthy achievements and writings in the field of the Club's interests, primarily exploration."[12] Perhaps to comfort fellow members, the article added, "This Woman's Roll of Honor shall be quite outside the Club's organisation but shall correspond in dignity to the Honorary Class of (male) members within it."[12] His continued support of women in anthropology is demonstrated in his 1939–1941 mentorship of Gitel Steed as she undertook research on diet and subsistence for his two-volume Lives of the Hunters, from which she began a dissertation on the topic of hunter-gatherer.
While living in New York City, Stefansson was one of the regulars at Romany Marie's Greenwich Village cafés[13] During the years when he and novelist Fannie Hurst were having an affair,[14] they met there when he was in town. In 1940, at the age of 62, he met 28-year-old Evelyn Schwartz at Romany Marie's;[13][14] she became his secretary and they married soon after.[15]
In 1941, he became the third honorary member of the American Polar Society.[16] He served as president of the History of Science Society from 1945–46.[17]
Legacy
Stefansson's personal papers and collection of Arctic artifacts are maintained and available to the public at the Dartmouth College Library.
Stefansson is frequently quoted as saying that "An adventure is a sign of incompetence..."[18]
Roald Amundsen stated he was "the greatest humbug alive"[5][19] referring to his mismanagement of the Wrangel Island fiascos.[citation needed]
On May 28, 1986, the United States Postal Service issued a 22 cent postage stamp in his honour.[20]
Political affiliations
In the 1930s, pro-Soviet movements were created in the US that aimed primarily to provide support for the Soviet project to establish a Jewish socialist republic in the Birobidzhan region in the far east of the Soviet Union. One of the organizations prominent in this campaign was the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan (or Ambijan) formed in 1934. A tireless proponent of settlement in Birobidzhan, Stefansson appeared at countless Ambijan meetings, dinners, and rallies, and proved an invaluable resource for the group. Ambijan produced a 50-page Year Book at the end of 1936, full of testimonials and letters of support. Among these was one from Stefansson, who was now also listed as a member of Ambijan's Board of Directors and Governors: "The Birobidjan project seems to me to offer a most statesmanlike contribution to the problem of the rehabilitation of eastern and central European Jewry," he wrote.
Ambijan's national conference in New York on November 25–26, 1944 pledged to raise $1 million to support refugees in Stalingrad and Birobidzhan. Prominent guests and speakers included New York Representative Emanuel Celler, Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, and Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko. A public dinner, attended by the delegates and their guests, was hosted by Vilhjalmur and his wife, Evelyn Stefansson. Vilhjalmur was selected as one of two vice-presidents of the organization.
However, with the growing anti-Soviet feeling in the country after World War II, "exposés" of Stefansson began to appear in the press. In August 1951, he was denounced as a communist before a Senate Internal Security subcommittee by Louis F. Budenz, a Communist-turned-Catholic. Stefansson himself may have by then had some second thoughts about Ambijan since his posthumously published autobiography conspicuously made no mention of his work on its behalf. The same is true of his otherwise very-complete obituary in The New York Times of August 27, 1962.[21]
Advocacy of exclusively meat diet
See also: Carnivore Diet
Stefansson is also a figure of considerable interest in dietary circles, especially those with an interest in a very low-carbohydrate diet. Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet was then consisted about 90% meat and fish. Inuit would often go six to nine months a year eating nothing but fatty meat and fresh fish, which might currently be perceived as a 'zero carb' / no-carbohydrate diet. (The diet technically contains a very low amount of carbohydrates, as the fresh fish that the Inuit ate would have had a small amount of glycogen.) Stefansson found that he and his fellow explorers of European, Black, and South Sea Islands descent were also “perfectly healthy” on such a diet.
Some years after his first experience with the Inuit (known as Eskimos in Stefansson's time), Stefansson returned to the Arctic with a colleague, Dr. Karsten Anderson, to carry out research for the American Museum of Natural History. They were supplied with every necessity, including a year's supply of 'civilised' food. They declined, electing instead to live off the land. In the end, the one-year project stretched to four years, during which time the two men ate only the meat they could kill and the fish they could catch in the Canadian Arctic. Neither of the two men suffered any adverse after-effects from their four-year experiment. Stefansson deduced, as had William Banting, that the body could function, remain healthy, vigorous, and slender if a diet in which as much food was eaten as the body required, with only carbohydrates restricted and the total number of calories ignored.[22]
While there was considerable skepticism when Stefansson reported his findings about the viability of an exclusively meat diet, his claims have been borne out in later studies and analyses.[23] In multiple studies, it was shown that the Inuit diet was a unique ketogenic diet. While the Inuit diet derived a percentage of its calories from the glycogen found in the raw meats, the native Inuit ate a diet of primarily stewed (boiled) fresh fish and fatty meats such as caribou, whale, or seal, while occasionally eating raw fish.[24][25][26]
To combat erroneous conventional beliefs about diet, Stefansson and his fellow explorer Karsten Anderson agreed to undertake an official study to demonstrate that they could eat a 100% meat diet in a closely observed laboratory setting for the first several weeks. For the rest of an entire year, paid observers followed them to ensure dietary compliance. The book The Unseen Power: Public Relations states that Pendelton Dudley, once considered the "dean of public relations", convinced the American Meat Institute to fund this study.[27] The results were published.
Anderson had developed glycosuria during this time, which is normally associated with untreated diabetes. But unlike the pathology of diabetes, in this particular study, glycosuria was present in Anderson for four days and coincided only with the administration of a 100 gm of glucose for a tolerance test, and with the first three days of his pneumonia, where he received fluids and a diet rich in carbohydrate. Once that situation resolved, the glucosuria disappeared.[28]
At the researchers' request, Stefansson was asked to eat lean meat only for a time. Stefansson noted that in the Arctic, very lean meat sometimes produced "digestive disturbances". His prior experience was that lean meat would lead to illness after the second or third fatless week. Stefansson developed nausea and diarrhea on the third day at Bellevue. Stefansson attributes the fast onset of illness due to the lean meat that he was served versus the fattier caribou meat he consumed previously.[29] After eating fatty meat, he fully recovered in two days. However, the initial disturbance was followed by "a period of persistent constipation lasting 10 days".[30]
There were no deficiency problems while eating only the kind of fatty meat they requested. The two men remained healthy; their bowels remained normal, except that their stools were smaller and did not smell. Stefansson's gingivitis disappeared by the end of the experiment although there was an increase in the deposit of tartar on his teeth. During this experiment his intake had varied between 2,000 and 3,100 calories per day and he derived an average of almost 80% of his energy from animal fat and almost 20% from animal protein.[22] Daily intake varied from 100-140 grams of protein, 200-300 grams of fat, and 7-12 grams of carbohydrates.
Stefansson, Canadian-born of Icelandic parentage and the last of the dog-sled explorers, spent many years in the Arctic. His books aim to combat popular misconceptions about the Far North. They show that it is a good place for colonization, that human life can be supported there on a diet of seal alone, and that it has possibilities for commercial usefulness. Stefansson's "findings changed man's prevailing concepts. By "humanizing' the icy north, he became known as the man who robbed the Arctic Circle of all its terrors and most of its discomforts" (Boston Globe). As far back as 1915, he suggested the feat that the atom-powered Nautilus finally accomplished---submerging under the Arctic ice on the Pacific side and emerging, after two months, on the Atlantic side. The whole fascinating search for a northwest passage is told with scholarly authority in his Northwest to Fortune (1958). "Clearly and lovingly written, the book brings color and even warmth to regions which for so many of us have seemed wrapped in cold, fog, and ice" (Christian Science Monitor).
IN 1928, VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON WAS already world-famous. A Canadian anthropologist and consummate showman, he promoted the idea of a “Friendly Arctic,” open to exploration and commercialization. Newspapers and magazines breathlessly covered his sometimes-deadly escapades in the Arctic, including his discoveries of some of the world’s last unknown landmasses, and, more controversially, a group of “blond” Inuinnait who he claimed partially descended from Norse settlers. But for a little while, another facet of Stefansson’s life drew media attention. While living in New York for a year, Stefansson ate nothing but meat.
Today, this would be known as a ketogenic, or a no-carb diet. It’s in vogue as a weight-loss tactic: The idea is that limiting carbohydrates, which are an easy source of energy, can make the body burn fat.
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But Stefansson wasn’t trying to burn fat. Instead, he wanted to prove the viability of the Inuit’s meat-heavy diet. In the Arctic, people mainly ate fish and meat from seals, whale, caribou, and waterfowl, while brief summers offered limited vegetation, such as cloudberries and fireweed. Meals could be frozen fish, or elaborate treats such as the creamy fat-and-berry dish akutaq. Western doctors thought it was a terrible way to eat.
Even in the 1920s, a diet light on meat and heavy on vegetables was considered optimal. Vegetarians were more numerous than ever, and raw vegetables, particularly celery, took on a virtuous shine. This was the era of John Harvey Kellogg, famed for not only cereal, but his health resort in Battle Creek, where no meat was on the menu. (Stefansson was even a guest there, perhaps briefly swapping steak for snowflake toast.)
Stefansson walking away from the doomed <em>Karluk.</em>
Stefansson walking away from the doomed Karluk. PUBLIC DOMAIN
It’s now widely acknowledged that the Inuit subsistence diet is quite balanced. As biochemist and Arctic nutrition expert Harold Draper told Discover magazine, there are no essential foods, only essential nutrients. Vitamin A and D, so easily available from milk, vegetables, and sunlight, can also be obtained from oils within sea mammals (particularly livers) and fish. And fresh meats and fish, prepared raw, contain trace amounts of vitamin C, a fact that Stefansson was the first Westerner to realize. It only takes a little to prevent scurvy.
During Stefansson’s day, though, doctors, dietitians, and general opinion considered the meat-heavy diets of the Arctic peoples poor and improbable. Stefansson’s year of eating carnivorously was a high-profile attempt to prove them wrong.
Stefansson himself had only come around to the diet after an extended stay in the Mackenzie Delta of the western Arctic in 1906. When a ship carrying his supplies failed to materialize, he instead depended on the hospitality of a local family. At first, he roamed far and wide to build up an appetite for the plain roasted fish he received. “When I got home I would nibble at it and write in my diary what a terrible time I was having,” he wryly wrote later. But he gradually learned to enjoy the alternatively boiled, frozen, and fermented fish that he watched Inuvialuit women prepare.
It was during this first extended stay that he started to object to what he had been told about the Arctic diet, especially his peers’ horror over the “uncivilized” practice of eating fermented fish. “I tried the rotten fish one day, and if memory servers, liked it better than my first taste of Camembert,” he wrote. It wasn’t hard to notice that the diet had other benefits, too. “[I] did not get scurvy on the fish diet, nor learn that any of my fish-eating friends ever had it,” he wrote in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in 1935.
Stefansson [right], four years before his meat-diet experiment.
Stefansson [right], four years before his meat-diet experiment. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/2016837340
Eating Inuit-style became Stefansson’s obsession. American and European explorers typically carried their own supplies with them, including fruitcake and whiskey. According to biographer Tom Henighan, Stefansson was (famously) more interested in eating what the Inuit were eating, and mostly hunted his own meat. This had a dual appeal: He didn’t have to bring along heavy supplies, and, as time went on and he suffered few ill effects, Stefansson became convinced the Inuit were on to something. As a result, Henighan writes, “he took issue with the medical dogma” that the best diet was extremely varied and featured the maximum amount of raw vegetables. In fact, he called those ideas the “fetishes” of dietitians. After retiring from Arctic forays in 1918, he estimated he had spent a total of five years living entirely off meat and water.
Stefansson even found himself defending the thesis that vegetables weren’t necessary for a healthy diet. “Stefansson Braves the Wrath of Vegetarians” was just one headline published during a flurry of media attention in 1924. “The common supposition is that a meat diet would lead to rheumatism, gout, and premature old age,” commented the anonymous writer, who also opined that while the chilly rigors of a life in the Arctic might make an all-meat diet possible, it wouldn’t be appropriate for someone living in a temperate or tropical zone.
Seals could provide food, oil, and even the material for clothing.
Seals could provide food, oil, and even the material for clothing. INTERNET ARCHIVE/PUBLIC DOMAIN
So in 1928, Stefansson and another explorer began their culinary experiment. Checking into New York’s Bellevue Hospital, the two spent several weeks under constant supervision as doctors did blood tests and observed for signs of dietary distress. After a brief control period of a varied diet, the two men ate only fresh meat: The cuts included steak, roast beef, brains, and tongue, with calf liver once a week to ward off scurvy. Perhaps inevitably, the study was funded by the Institute of American Meat Packers.
Despite the suspect funding, the study in New York was the culmination of Stefansson’s long interest in meat and the Arctic. For years, he had promoted the Arctic as a potential meat-producing paradise, capable of sustaining vast reindeer and muskox herds. His stance on living off the land led other explorers to try to debunk his self-sufficiency thesis: Explorer Roald Amundsen told the New York Times in 1921 that he was going to take seven year’s worth of food with him on the famous ship Maud when he went in search of the North Pole. Amundsen had a point, since during one expedition organized by Stefansson, most of its members starved to death.
Walrus, shown here, is also a traditional food still eaten today.
Walrus, shown here, is also a traditional food still eaten today. ANSGAR WALK/CC BY-SA 2.5
While doctors condemned the diet as dangerous, Stefansson was defiant, attributing his increased vigor and “ambition” to his all-meat diet. Newspapers and magazines across the country ran stories on his experiment, contrasting it with the vegetable-heavy diets most doctors recommended. Soon, Stefansson left the hospital, having lost a few pounds, and continued his meat-eating endeavor from his New York apartment. Doctors examining the two men during the year-long trial reported that neither had heightened blood pressure or kidney trouble, the expected result of a carnivorous diet. The one thing lacking in their diet, Stefansson noted, was enough calcium.
Another conclusion Stefansson came to was that the protein he was eating wasn’t as important as the fat. He briefly flirted with “rabbit starvation,” a condition named for the fact that eating solely meat without sufficient fat can prove deadly. The human liver can only process so much protein sans fat without kickstarting the symptoms of protein poisoning: nausea, wasting, and death. Fat, and lots of it, is essential to the all-meat diet. Aquatic mammals are especially rich with fat, though. Recent studies point to genetics also playing a role in the Inuit aptitude for fatty, meat-filled diets, but as in Stefansson’s time as well as today, there remain questions about the relative healthiness of fats.
Stefansson nearly contracted "rabbit poisoning" by eating too-skinny caribou.
Stefansson nearly contracted “rabbit poisoning” by eating too-skinny caribou. DAVID MENKE/PUBLIC DOMAIN
Lucky for Stefansson, fat suited him. Later in life, he cheerfully returned to a diet of meat and fat, washed down with Martinis. At dinner parties, he sometimes ate nothing but butter with a spoon. He died at the age of 82.
Despite his grandstanding, Stefansson didn’t think the all-meat diet was for everyone. It was expensive, and he knew there wasn’t enough meat in the world to feed everyone in such a way. But he always insisted that it was a viable, healthy diet.
Today, Stefansson is known more for his explorations, successful and otherwise. But some scholars appreciate him shining a light on the viability of local foodways, which had been dismissed as uncivilized and baffling. “Stefansson had no intention of recording Arctic food practices,” writes Arctic food historian Zona Spray Starks. “Yet he was one of the first explorers to credit Arctic native women with cooking knowledge.”
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, (born November 3, 1879, Arnes, Manitoba, Canada—died August 26, 1962, Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.), Canadian-born American explorer and ethnologist who spent five consecutive record-making years exploring vast areas of the Canadian Arctic after adapting himself to the Inuit (Eskimo) way of life.
Of Icelandic descent, Stefansson lived for a year among the Inuit in 1906–07, acquiring an intimate knowledge of their language and culture and forming the belief that Europeans could “live off the land” in the Arctic by adopting Inuit ways. From 1908 to 1912, he and the Canadian zoologist Rudolph M. Anderson carried out ethnographical and zoological studies among the Mackenzie and Copper Inuit of Coronation Gulf, in Canada’s Northwest Territories (now in Nunavut).
Buzz Aldrin. Apollo 11. Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin Aldrin, photographed July 20, 1969, during the first manned mission to the Moon's surface. Reflected in Aldrin's faceplate is the Lunar Module and astronaut Neil Armstrong, who took the picture.
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Between 1913 and 1918 Stefansson extended his exploration of the Northwest Territories. His party was divided into two groups: the southern one, under Anderson, did survey and scientific work on the north mainland coast from Alaska eastward to Coronation Gulf, while the northern group travelled extensively in the northwest, discovering the last unknown islands of Canada’s Arctic archipelago, Borden, Brock, Meighen, and Lougheed.
Stefansson’s knowledge of the Canadian Arctic led him to predict that the area would become economically important. In World War II he was an adviser to the U.S. government, surveyed defense conditions in Alaska, and prepared reports and manuals for the armed forces. From 1947 he was Arctic consultant at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. He wrote a number of books, including My Life with the Eskimo (1913), The Friendly Arctic (1921), Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic (1939), and Discovery (1964).
This article was most recently revised and updated by Kenneth Pletcher.
Arctic Ocean
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Arctic Ocean
Arctic Ocean
Arctic Ocean, smallest of the world’s oceans, centring approximately on the North Pole. The Arctic Ocean and its marginal seas—the Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev, Kara, Barents, White, Greenland, and Beaufort and, according to some oceanographers, also the Bering and Norwegian—are the least-known basins and bodies of water in the world ocean as a result of their remoteness, hostile weather, and perennial or seasonal ice cover. This is changing, however, because the Arctic may exhibit a strong response to global change and may be capable of initiating dramatic climatic changes through alterations induced in the oceanic thermohaline circulation by its cold, southward-moving currents or through its effects on the global albedo resulting from changes in its total ice cover.
Although the Arctic Ocean is by far the smallest of Earth’s oceans, having only a little more than one-sixth the area of the next largest, the Indian Ocean, its area of 5,440,000 square miles (14,090,000 square km) is five times larger than that of the largest sea, the Mediterranean. The deepest sounding obtained in Arctic waters is 18,050 feet (5,502 metres), but the average depth is only 3,240 feet (987 metres).
Distinguished by several unique features, including a cover of perennial ice and almost complete encirclement by the landmasses of North America, Eurasia, and Greenland, the north polar region has been a subject of speculation since the earliest concepts of a spherical Earth. From astronomical observations, the Greeks theorized that north of the Arctic Circle there must be a midnight sun at midsummer and continual darkness at midwinter. The enlightened view was that both the northern and southern polar regions were uninhabitable frozen wastes, whereas the more popular belief was that there was a halcyon land beyond the north wind where the sun always shone and people called Hyperboreans led a peaceful life. Such speculations provided incentives for adventurous men to risk the hazards of severe climate and fear of the unknown to further geographic knowledge and national and personal prosperity.
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International Waters
Origin
The tectonic history of the Arctic Basin in the Cenozoic Era (i.e., about the past 65 million years) is largely known from available geophysical data. It is clear from aeromagnetic and seismic data that the Eurasia Basin was formed by seafloor spreading along the axis of the Nansen-Gakkel Ridge. The focus of spreading began under the edge of the Asian continent, from which a narrow splinter of its northern continental margin was separated and translated northward to form the present Lomonosov Ridge. The origin of the Amerasia Basin is far less clear. Most researchers favour a hypothesis of opening by rotation of the Arctic-Alaska lithospheric plate away from the North American Plate during the Cretaceous Period (about 145 to 65 million years ago). Better understanding of the origin of the Arctic Ocean’s basins and ridges is critical for reconstructing the paleoclimatic evolution of the ocean and for understanding its relevance to global environmental changes.
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The sediments of the Arctic Ocean floor record the natural of the physical environment, climate, and ecosystems on time scales determined by the ability to sample them through coring and at resolutions determined by the rates of deposition. Of the hundreds of sediment corings taken, only four penetrate deeply enough to predate the onset of cold climatic conditions. The oldest (approximately 80-million-year-old black muds and 67-million-year-old siliceous oozes) document that at least part of the Arctic Ocean was relatively warm and biologically productive prior to 40 million years ago. Unfortunately, none of the available seafloor cores have sampled sediments from the time interval between 35 to 3 million years ago. Thus there is no direct evidence of the onset of cooling that produced the present perennial ice cover. All the other cores collected contain younger sediments that were deposited in an ocean dominated by ice cover. They contain evidence of terrigenous (land-derived) sediments formed by bordering glaciers and transported by sea ice.
Topography of the ocean floor
From the late 19th century, when the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen first discovered an ocean in the central Arctic, until the middle of the 20th century, it was believed that the Arctic Ocean was a single large basin. Explorations after 1950 revealed the true complex nature of the ocean floor. Rather than being a single basin, the Arctic Ocean consists of two principal deep basins that are subdivided into four smaller basins by three transoceanic submarine ridges. The central of these ridges extends from the continental shelf off Ellesmere Island to the New Siberian Islands, a distance of 1,100 miles (1,770 km). This enormous submarine mountain range was discovered by Soviet scientists in 1948–49 and reported in 1954. It is named the Lomonosov Ridge after the scientist, poet, and grammarian Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov.
The Lomonosov Ridge has an average relief of about 10,000 feet and divides the Arctic Ocean into two physiographically complex basins. These are referred to as the Eurasia Basin on the European side of the ridge and the Amerasia Basin on the American side. The Lomonosov Ridge varies in width from 40 to 120 miles, and its crest ranges in depth between 3,100 and 5,400 feet.
The Eurasia Basin is divided into two smaller basins by a trans-Arctic Ocean extension of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This Arctic segment of the global ridge system is called the Nansen Cordillera, which was named for Fridtjof Nansen after its discovery in the early 1960s. It is a locus of active ocean-floor spreading, with a well-developed rift valley and flanking rift mountains. The Fram Basin lies between the Nansen-Gakkel Ridge and the Lomonosov Ridge at a depth of 14,070 feet. The geographic north pole is located over the floor of the Fram Basin near its juncture with the Lomonosov Ridge. The smallest of the Arctic Ocean subbasins, called the Nansen Basin, lies between the Nansen-Gakkel Ridge and the Eurasian continental margin and has a floor depth of 13,800 feet.
The Amerasia Basin is divided into two unequal basins by the Alpha Cordillera (Alpha Ridge), a broad, rugged submarine mountain chain that extends to within 4,600 feet of the ocean surface. The origin of this seismically inactive ridge, which was discovered in the late 1950s, is undetermined and holds the key to understanding the origin of the Amerasia Basin. The Makarov Basin lies between the Alpha Cordillera and the Lomonosov Ridge, and its floor is at a depth of 13,200 feet. The largest subbasin of the Arctic Ocean is the Canada Basin, which extends approximately 700 miles from the Beaufort Shelf to the Alpha Cordillera. The smooth basin floor slopes gently from east to west, where it is interrupted by regions of sea knolls. The average depth of the Canada Basin is 12,500 feet.
The Arctic Ocean is unique in that nearly one-third of its total area is underlain by continental shelf, which is asymmetrically distributed around its circumference. North of Alaska and Greenland the shelf is 60 to 120 miles wide, which is the normal width of continental shelves. In contrast, the Siberian and Chukchi shelves off Eurasia range from 300 to 1,100 miles in width. The edge of the continental margin is dissected by numerous submarine valleys. The largest of these, the Svyataya Anna Trough, is 110 miles wide and 300 miles long.
Oceanography
Several factors in the Arctic Ocean make its physical, chemical, and biological processes significantly different from those in the adjoining North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Most notable is the covering ice pack, which reduces the exchange of energy between ocean and atmosphere by about 100 times. In addition, sea ice greatly reduces the penetration of sunlight needed for the photosynthetic processes of marine life and impedes the mixing effect of the winds. A further significant distinguishing feature is the high ratio of freely connected shallow seas to deep basins. Whereas the continental shelf on the North American side of the Arctic Ocean is of a normal width (approximately 40 miles), the Eurasian sector is hundreds of miles broad, with peninsulas and islands dividing it into five main marginal seas: the Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev, Kara, and Barents. These marginal seas occupy 36 percent of the area of the Arctic Ocean, yet they contain only 2 percent of its water volume. With the exception of the Mackenzie River of Canada and the Colville River of Alaska, all major rivers discharge into these marginal shallow seas. The combination of large marginal seas, with a high ratio of exposed surface to total volume, plus large summer inputs of fresh water, greatly influences surface-water conditions in the Arctic Ocean.
As an approximation, the Arctic Ocean may be regarded as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. The major circulation into and from the Arctic Basin is through a single deep channel, the Fram Strait, which lies between the island of Spitsbergen and Greenland. A substantially smaller quantity (approximately one-quarter of the volume) of water is transported southward through the Barents and Kara seas and the Canadian Archipelago. The combined outflow to the Atlantic appears to be of major significance to the large-scale thermohaline circulation and mean temperature of the world ocean with a potentially profound impact on global climate variability. Warm waters entering the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Sea plunge downward when they meet the colder waters from more northerly produced fresh water, southward-drifting ice, and a colder atmosphere. This produces North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), which circulates in the world ocean. An increase in this freshwater and ice export could shut down the thermocline convection in the GIN Sea; alternatively, a decrease in ice export might allow for convection and ventilation in the Arctic Ocean itself.
Low-salinity waters enter the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific through the shallow Bering Strait. Although the mean inflow seems to be driven by a slight difference in sea level between the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, a large source of variability is induced by the wind field, primarily large-scale atmospheric circulation over the North Pacific. The amount of fresh water entering the Arctic Ocean is about 2 percent of the total input. Precipitation is believed to be about 10 times greater than loss by evaporation, although both figures can be only roughly estimated. Through all these various routes and mechanisms, the exchange rate of the Arctic Ocean is estimated to be approximately 210 million cubic feet (5.9 million cubic metres) per second.
All waters of the Arctic Ocean are cold. Variations in density are thus mainly determined by changes in salinity. Arctic waters have a two-layer system: a thin and less dense surface layer is separated by a strong density gradient, referred to as a pycnocline, from the main body of water, which is of quite uniform density. This pycnocline restricts convective motion and the vertical transfer of heat and salt, and hence the surface layer acts as a cap over the larger masses of warmer water below.
Despite this overall similarity in gross oceanographic structure, the waters of the Arctic Ocean can be classified into three major masses and one lesser mass.
1. The water extending from the surface to a depth of about 650 feet (about 200 metres) is the most variable and heterogeneous of all that in the Arctic. This is because of the latent heat of freezing and thawing; brine addition from the process of ice freezing; freshwater addition by rivers, ice melting, and precipitation; and great variations in insolation (rate of delivery of solar energy) and energy flux as a result of sea ice cover. Water temperature may vary over a range of 7 °F (4 °C) and salinity from 28 to 34 grams of salt per kilogram of seawater (28 to 34 parts per thousand [ 0/00]).
2. Warmer Atlantic water everywhere underlies Arctic surface water from a depth of about 650 to 3,000 feet. As it cools it becomes so dense that it slips below the surface layer on entering the Arctic Basin. The temperature of this water is about 34 to 37 °F (1 to 3 °C) as it enters the basin, but it is gradually cooled so that by the time it spreads to the Beaufort Sea it has a maximum temperature of 32.9 to 33.1 °F (0.5 to 0.6 °C). The salinity of the Atlantic layer varies between 34.5 and 35 0/00.
3. Bottom water extends beneath the Atlantic layer to the ocean floor. This is colder than the Atlantic water (below 32 °F, or 0 °C) but has the same salinity.
4. An inflow of Pacific water can be observed in the Amerasia Basin but not in the Eurasia Basin. This warmer and fresher water mixes with colder and more saline water in the Chukchi Sea, where its density enables it to flow as a wedge between the Arctic and Atlantic waters. The Pacific water, by the time it reaches the Canada Basin, has a temperature range of 31.1 to 30.8 °F (−0.5 to −0.7 °C) and salinities between 31.5 and 33 0/00.
Arctic waters are driven by the wind and by density differences. The net effect of tides is unknown but could have some modifying effect on gross circulation. The motion of surface waters is best known from observations of ice drift. The most striking feature of the surface circulation pattern is the large clockwise gyre (circular motion) that covers almost the entire Amerasia Basin. Fletcher’s Ice Island (T-3) made two orbits in this gyre over a 20-year period, which is some indication of the current speed. The northern extremity of the gyre bifurcates and jets out of the Greenland-Spitsbergen passage as the East Greenland Current, attaining speeds of 6 to 16 inches per second. Circulation of the shallow Eurasian shelf seas seems to be a complex series of counterclockwise gyres, complicated by islands and other topographic relief.
Circulation of the deeper Atlantic water is less well known. On entering the Eurasia Basin, the plunging Greenland Sea water appears to flow eastward along the edge of the continental margin until it fans out and enters the Amerasia Basin along a broad front over the crest of the Lomonosov Ridge. There seems to be a general counterclockwise circulation in the Eurasia Basin and a smaller clockwise gyre in the Beaufort Sea. Speeds are slow—probably less than two inches per second.
The circulation of the bottom water is unknown but can be inferred to be similar to the Atlantic layer. Measured values of dissolved oxygen show that the bottom water is well ventilated, dissolved oxygen everywhere exceeding 70 percent of saturation.
Sea ice
decline in minimum Arctic sea ice extent
decline in minimum Arctic sea ice extent
Remote sensing has revealed the loss in Arctic sea ice extent since the late 1970s.
The cover of sea ice suppresses wind stress and wind mixing, reflects a large proportion of incoming solar radiation, imposes an upper limit on the surface temperature, and impedes evaporation. Wind and water stresses keep the ice pack in almost continuous motion, causing the formation of cracks (leads), open ponds (polynya), and pressure ridges. Along these ridges the pack ice may be locally stacked high and project downward 33–80 feet (about 10–25 metres) into the ocean. Besides its deterrence to the exchange of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere, the formation of sea ice generates vast quantities of cold water that help drive the circulation of the world ocean system.
Sea ice rarely forms in the open ocean below a latitude of 60° N but does occur in more southerly enclosed bays, rivers, and seas. Between about 60° and 75° N the occurrence of sea ice is seasonal, and there is usually a period of the year when the water is ice-free. Above a latitude of 75° N there is a more or less permanent ice cover. Even there, however, as much as 10 percent of the area consists of open water owing to the continual opening of leads and polynyas.
In the process of freezing, the salt in seawater is expelled as brine. The degree to which this rejection takes place increases as the rate of freezing decreases. Typically, newly formed sea ice has a salinity of 4 to 6 0/00. Even after freezing the process of purification continues but at a much slower rate. By the time the ice is one year old, it is sufficiently salt-free to be melted for drinking. This year-old, or older, salt-free sea ice is referred to as multiyear sea ice or polar pack. It can be distinguished by its smoother, rounded surface and pale blue colour. Younger ice is more jagged and grayer in colour. Because the hardness and strength of ice increases as the salts are expelled, polar pack is a special threat to shipping. First-year ice has a characteristic thickness of up to 6 feet (2 metres), whereas multiyear ice averages about 12 feet (about 4 metres) in thickness.
There is no direct evidence as to the onset of the Arctic Ocean ice cover. The origin of the ice pack was influenced by a number of factors, such as the formation of terrestrial ice caps and the interaction of the Arctic and North Atlantic waters—with their different temperature and salinity structures—with atmospheric climate variables. What can be inferred from available data is that there was not a continuous ice cover throughout the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). Rather, there was a continually warm ocean until approximately 2,000,000 years ago, followed by a permanent ice pack about 850,000 years ago.
Shallow staghorn water corals in fringing reef at low tide in Thailand. (coral reefs; endangered area; ocean habitat; sea habitat; coral reef)
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Unknown Waters
Sea ice cover has fluctuated throughout the Holocene Epoch (11,700 years ago to the present) in response to changes in sea levels and the increases in coastline elevation following the retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets (see isostasy). These fluctuations were largely centred in the eastern Arctic Ocean during multiyear warm episodes, where ice cover would advance and retreat with the seasons. In the late 20th century, however, Arctic sea ice coverage declined persistently (about 3 percent per decade since 1978) in response to the effects of global warming, which lifts regional near-surface air temperatures above freezing for long portions of the year and which has caused the Arctic to warm nearly four times as rapidly as the rest of the world since 1979.
Ned Allen Ostenso
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Northwest Territories
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Northwest Territories
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Category: Geography & Travel
Capital: Yellowknife
Population: (2021) 41,070
Date Of Admission: 1870
Territorial Motto: none
Territorial Flower: mountain avens
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Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories, region of northern and northwestern Canada encompassing a vast area of forests and tundra. Throughout most of the 20th century, the territories constituted more than one-third of the area of Canada and reached almost from the eastern to the western extremities of the country, across the roof of the North American continent. The creation in 1999 of the territory of Nunavut out of the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories reduced the area of the latter by more than half.
The Northwest Territories are bordered by Nunavut to the east, the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia to the south, and Yukon to the west. In the north the territories extend far above the Arctic Circle to incorporate numerous islands, the largest of which are Banks and Prince Patrick; several islands also are divided between the territories and Nunavut, notably Victoria and Melville. Yellowknife is the capital and largest city. Area 519,735 square miles (1,346,106 square km). Pop. (2021) 41,070.
Land
Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
Mackenzie River
Mackenzie River
A tugboat makes its way on the Mackenzie River in the delta region near Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada.
Two main types of landscape blend into one another along the timberline, which runs southeastward from near the Mackenzie River delta on the Arctic Ocean to northwestern Manitoba and is just west of—and roughly parallel to—the border with Nunavut. Southwest of this line lies the northernmost part of the Canadian boreal forest (taiga), extending westward to the mountain ranges that border Yukon. North and east of the timberline stretch the relatively barren grounds of the Arctic: reaches of flat, often poorly drained lowlands underlain by rock more than 1 billion years old in the east and more-varied terrain toward the west. Within each of these two regions, the surface vegetation and the animal life it supports vary with soil and climatic conditions. The Mackenzie Mountains in the west and southwest contain the highest and most-rugged relief in the territories; elevations reach 9,098 feet (2,773 metres) at an unnamed peak in the southwest near Mount Sir James MacBrien, itself 9,062 feet (2,762 metres) high.
The most favourable conditions are found in the Mackenzie Lowlands in the west-central portion of the territories, where forests of black and white spruce mixed with deciduous species extend north to the Mackenzie delta. With only about 70 frost-free days, the growing season for herbaceous plants is short. While it lasts, however, wildflowers and grasses flourish, and root and cereal crops can be cultivated. Many species of valuable fur-bearing animals are found in the area, notably muskrat and beaver. Moose, wolves, black and grizzly bears, and mountain sheep and goats also are native.
dogsledding across Great Slave Lake
dogsledding across Great Slave Lake
Dog team moving across Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada.
Although the climate of the Mackenzie Lowlands is milder than that of the remainder of the territories, it is still cool enough to limit navigation on the Mackenzie River system to about four months a year and to cause a permanently frozen subsoil, or permafrost, except in a small area south of Great Slave Lake. Permafrost creates serious construction problems, especially where the subsoil is an unstable mixture of fine silt and water.
caribou: migration
caribou: migration
Herd of caribou (Rangifer tarandus), Northwest Territories, Canada.
North and east of the Mackenzie Lowlands and the tree line, the terrain changes to that of the ancient and rocky Precambrian mass known as the Canadian Shield, the western edge of which is straddled by the two largest lakes in the territories—Great Bear Lake (12,096 square miles [31,328 square km]) and Great Slave Lake (11,030 square miles [28,568 square km]). The Arctic islands to the north comprise the remnants of mountains formed some 300 to 400 million years ago. Tree growth becomes sparse and stunted and eventually disappears, to be replaced by the light but tough vegetation of the Arctic tundra. In these so-called barren lands the soils, where they exist at all on the heavily glaciated surface, are usually sandy and thin. Mosses, lichens, and many small, hardy flowering plants survive in these conditions and support a variety of animal life ranging from small burrowing mammals and their predator, the Arctic fox, to the large caribou and musk ox. The musk ox was in danger of becoming extinct until the Canadian government put it under protection in the early 20th century, and several subspecies of caribou are now at risk. Seals, walrus, and polar bears are prevalent along the coasts. Bird life is plentiful in summer, with some species, notably ptarmigans and ravens, remaining all winter. Mosquitoes and other insects abound during the summers.
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The climate in the Mackenzie Lowlands is relatively mild, with warm and dry summers during which average temperatures in July of about 60 °F (16 °C) are recorded at most of the settlements along the Mackenzie River. The winters are long and cold, with an average temperature in January of −16 °F (−27 °C) at Yellowknife, on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake. North and east of the timberline the Arctic climate prevails. Annual precipitation is light, and, although average winter temperatures are similar to those in the subarctic region to the west, summer temperatures do not rise above an average of 50 °F (10 °C) even in July.
People of the Northwest Territories
Population composition
American Indians (First Nations) make up more than one-third of the territorial population and include the Dene and the Métis. Concentrated in the Mackenzie valley area, the Dene belong to several tribes, all part of the Athabaskan language family. Tribal organization was never strong among the Dene, and small bands led by individuals chosen for their skill in the hunt were the effective social unit. This arrangement was easily molded to the needs of the fur trade when it reached the Mackenzie area in the 18th century. Thereafter, the exchange of furs for imported goods became the basis of the Dene economy. Government treaties were made with the groups living south of Great Slave Lake in 1899 and with those living farther north only in 1921. No reservations were established, but a substantial number of small indigenous settlements have the same status as reservations elsewhere. The decline of the fur trade in the 20th century left many Dene unemployed. The Métis (people of mixed Indian and European ancestry) were granted legal recognition as a native group by the Canadian government in 2003.
Constituting about one-tenth of the population, the Inuit (the aboriginal Arctic people of Canada, called Eskimo in the United States) are found mainly in the northern coastal portions of the territories. They are distinct from the Dene in language and culture and generally live apart from them. (The vast majority of Canadian Inuit are found in Nunavut.)
The remainder of the people in the territories are mainly of European descent. Most live in the more economically advanced Fort Smith region, where they find employment in mining, transportation, and public service. Much of this population has always been transient.
Settlement patterns
The aboriginal peoples of the territories once led nomadic lives; the Inuit in particular survived by adapting to the harsh natural environment. But this balance was disturbed when Europeans established permanent settlements and introduced firearms, resulting in the drastic depletion of the barren-ground caribou, an important food source. Attempts to introduce domestic reindeer and other domesticated animals have not been successful. Most aboriginal people now live in towns and small settlements. Although hunting and fishing continue to provide some food, these settlements rely on imported food, fuel, and other necessities.
The territories are among the most sparsely populated habitable regions of the world. Nearly all the population lives in small settlements along the Mackenzie River, with smaller numbers along the Arctic coastlines of the mainland and northern islands. In addition to Yellowknife, the main towns are Hay River, Fort Smith, and Inuvik; all are in the Mackenzie area. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the territories had much lower rates of international immigration than the Canadian provinces; they also tended to lose more residents to interprovincial migration than they gained.
Economy
The economy of the territories depends on the exploitation of natural resources. However, high production costs and transportation problems inhibit the development of many of the territories’ mineral resources, including the petroleum and natural gas fields that exist in the western Arctic coastal regions. Services play a significant role in the economy, but manufacturing is negligible. Because royalties and other revenues from natural resource use in the territories are collected by the federal government, the territorial administration relies on funds transferred to it from the federal authority for most of its revenues. Government assistance in the development of major resources has been provided mainly in the form of roads, electric power facilities, mapping, and geologic services. Government agencies produce and distribute electric power throughout the territories and provide certain transportation services.
Agriculture, forestry, hunting, and fishing
Although there are areas of arable land in the southern parts of the Mackenzie valley, farming is not profitable. Some field crops are grown for local use, but most foodstuffs must be imported, greatly increasing their price. The Fort Smith region has most of the territories’ approximately 130,000 square miles (330,000 square km) of forested land, but, even there, large stands of marketable timber are not plentiful. Several sawmills process the timber only for local use.
Trapping continues to provide income for some of the aboriginal population. Muskrat, beaver, marten, mink, and lyn
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer, ethnologist, lecturer, writer (born 3 November 1879 in Arnes, MB; died 26 August 1962 in Hanover, New Hampshire).
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer, ethnologist, lecturer, writer (born 3 November 1879 in Arnes, MB; died 26 August 1962 in Hanover, New Hampshire). Over the course of three forays into the Arctic between 1906 and 1918, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, one of Canada's most renowned Arctic explorers, travelled more than 32,000 km by sled and dog team, and explored some of the world’s last uncharted territory. Of his explorations, the most well-known was the Canadian Arctic Expedition, which he led between 1913 and 1918. By the 1920s, Stefansson’s travels and writing had turned him into an internationally recognized personality, and he created more interest in the Arctic among Canadians than any other individual of his time. No stranger to controversy, Stefansson often had a polarizing effect on the public; supporters considered him a visionary genius and “prophet of the North,” while detractors labelled him a reckless and manipulative adventurer.
Early Life and Arctic Exploration
Shortly after his birth at Arnes, Manitoba in 1879, Vihjalmur Stefansson moved with his Icelandic parents to North Dakota in the United States. During his early adult years, Stefansson studied religion and anthropology at the universities of North Dakota, Iowa, and Harvard. In 1906, he accepted an invitation to participate in the expedition of Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen and American geologist Ernest de Koven Leffingwell. This 1906-1907 expedition took him to the Western Arctic, where he studied the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie Delta. Fascinated by the Arctic and its people, Stefansson then joined with zoologist Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson to conduct ethnographical and scientific research from Point Barrow, Alaska, to the Coronation Gulf between 1908 and 1912.Near Dolphin and Union Strait, Stefansson encountered a little-known group of Inuinnait (Copper Inuit), whom he called the "Blond Eskimos." He sparked a controversy by suggesting that their lighter features could be the result of generations of intermingling with a Norse colony of Greenlanders that had vanished in the 15th century. His theory had no scientific foundation, and Stefansson faced criticism and accusations of sensationalism from the academic community.
During his 1908-1912 expedition, Stefansson hired an Inupiat guide, Natkusiak, and started a relationship with the Inuvialuit seamstress he had hired, Panigavluk (often referred to as “Fanny Pannigabluk”), with whom he had a son named Alec (many sources call him “Alex”). Stefansson relied on these individuals in order to travel effectively and do research in the Arctic, and learned from them how to dress properly for the weather, live off the land, and speak Inuktitut. Stefansson wanted to prove that an Arctic expedition could be sustained by the local resources of the land and sea — something he demonstrated with some success during his command of the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913-1918). During the CAE, Stefansson and the expedition’s Northern Party outlined the edge of Canada’s continental shelf and discovered some of the world's last major landmasses — Lougheed, Borden, Mackenzie King, Meighen and Brock islands — while drifting dangerously, but deliberately, on ice floes. Despite these successes, the venture was fraught with internal dissension, and many of its members openly questioned Stefansson’s leadership and planning. Critiques were amplified by the sinking of the CAE’s flagship, Karluk, which resulted in the deaths of 11 expedition members, and by the deaths of six more individuals over the course of the rest of the expedition.
The Friendly Arctic
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was a brilliant publicist and a prolific writer, and he strived to use his position to shape people’s perceptions of the Arctic. His most famous book, The Friendly Arctic (1921), had a simple message: the Arctic was not a bleak, frozen wasteland, but a habitable region that must be developed. “It is human nature to undervalue whatever lands are distant and to consider disagreeable whatever is different,” Stefansson asserted. “It is chiefly our unwillingness to change our minds which prevents the North from changing into a country to be used and lived in just like the rest of the world.” To spur on the region’s development, Stefansson presented the Arctic Ocean as a militarily and commercially strategic “Polar Mediterranean” that, if controlled and exploited by Canada, could make the country one of the great powers of the 20th century.
Arctic Missteps and Move to the United States
In 1921, after he had failed to secure government support for another official Arctic expedition, Vilhjalmur Stefansson dispatched a small private party to colonize and claim Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, as Canadian territory. This generated an international incident that aggravated tensions between the USSR and the US, and embarrassed Great Britain, whose government denied any support of the mission. The Canadian government was infuriated, seeing his action as high-handed and threatening to Canada's claims to the Arctic Archipelago. When four out of the five members of the occupation party perished, including a young Canadian student, Stefansson became the target of much public criticism for sending the ill-prepared group to the island. His reputation only worsened between 1921 and 1925 when his poorly planned scheme for the domestication of reindeer (imported from Norway) on Baffin Island resulted in chaos.
By the mid-1920s, many Canadians perceived Stefansson as a troublemaker whose ideas and presence were unwelcome. He spent the rest of his life in the United States, where he continued to be regarded as one of the world's foremost Arctic experts. He advised the U.S. government and military from time to time, served as president of the Explorers Club, worked to establish an Arctic Institute at Dartmouth College and, in 1941, married Evelyn Schwartz Baird. The advent of the Cold War, combined with allegations that Stefansson had communist inclinations, brought about the cancellation of the ambitious 20-volume Encyclopedia Arctica he had been preparing with the support of the U.S. Navy.
During his last years, Stefansson continued to work at Dartmouth while he completed his autobiography, Discovery. Vilhjalmur Stefansson died of a stroke on 26 August 1962, at the age of 82.
Eskimo (/ˈɛskɪmoʊ/) is an exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Canadian Inuit, and the Greenlandic Inuit) and the Yupik (or Yuit) of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related third group, the Aleut, who inhabit the Aleutian Islands, are generally excluded from the definition of Eskimo. The three groups share a relatively recent common ancestor, and speak related languages belonging to the Eskaleut language family.
These circumpolar peoples have traditionally inhabited the Arctic and subarctic regions from eastern Siberia (Russia) to Alaska (United States), Northern Canada, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, and Greenland.
Many Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and other individuals consider the term Eskimo, which is of a disputed etymology,[1] to be offensive and even pejorative.[2][3] Eskimo continues to be used within a historical, linguistic, archaeological, and cultural context. The governments in Canada[4][5][6] and the United States[7][8] have made moves to cease using the term Eskimo in official documents, but it has not been eliminated, as the word is in some places written into tribal, and therefore national, legal terminology.[9] Canada officially uses the term Inuit to describe the indigenous Canadian people who are living in the country's northern sectors and are not First Nations or Métis.[4][5][10][11] The United States government legally uses Alaska Native[8] for enrolled tribal members of the Yupik, Inuit, and Aleut, and also for non-Eskimos including the Tlingit, the Haida, the Eyak, and the Tsimshian, in addition to at least nine northern Athabaskan/Dene peoples.[12] Other non-enrolled individuals also claim Eskimo/Aleut descent, making it the world's "most widespread aboriginal group".[13][14][15]
There are between 171,000 and 187,000 Inuit and Yupik, the majority of whom live in or near their traditional circumpolar homeland. Of these, 53,785 (2010) live in the United States, 65,025 (2016) in Canada, 51,730 (2021) in Greenland and 1,657 (2021) in Russia. In addition, 16,730 people living in Denmark were born in Greenland.[16][17][18][19][20] The Inuit Circumpolar Council, a non-governmental organization (NGO), claims to represent 180,000 people.[21]
In the Eskaleut language family, the Eskimo branch has an Inuit language sub-branch, and a sub-branch of four Yupik languages. Two Yupik languages are used in the Russian Far East as well as on St. Lawrence Island, and two in western Alaska, southwestern Alaska, and western Southcentral Alaska. The extinct Sirenik language is sometimes claimed to be related.
Nomenclature
Etymology
Further information: Native American name controversy
Illustration of a Greenlandic Inuit man
A variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origin of the word Eskimo.[22][23][24][25][26][3] According to Smithsonian linguist Ives Goddard, etymologically the word derives from the Innu-aimun (Montagnais) word ayas̆kimew, meaning "a person who laces a snowshoe",[27][28][29] and is related to husky (a breed of dog).[citation needed] The word assime·w means "she laces a snowshoe" in Innu, and Innu language speakers refer to the neighbouring Mi'kmaq people using words that sound like eskimo.[30][31] This interpretation is generally confirmed by more recent academic sources.[32]
In 1978, José Mailhot, a Quebec anthropologist who speaks Innu-aimun (Montagnais), published a paper suggesting that Eskimo meant "people who speak a different language".[33][34] French traders who encountered the Innu (Montagnais) in the eastern areas adopted their word for the more western peoples and spelled it as Esquimau or Esquimaux in a transliteration.[35]
Some people consider Eskimo offensive, because it is popularly perceived to mean[34][36][37] "eaters of raw meat" in Algonquian languages common to people along the Atlantic coast.[28][38][39] An unnamed Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might have been askamiciw (meaning "he eats it raw"); Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (meaning "eats something raw").[38][39][40][41][4][42] Regardless, the term still carries a derogatory connotation for many Inuit and Yupik.[28][38][43][44]
One of the first printed uses of the French word Esquimaux comes from Samuel Hearne's A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 first published in 1795.[45]
Usage
Laminar armour from hardened leather reinforced by wood and bones worn by native Siberians and Eskimos
Lamellar armour worn by native Siberians
The term Eskimo is still used by people to encompass Inuit and Yupik, as well as other Indigenous or Alaska Native and Siberian peoples.[27][43][46] In the 21st century, usage in North America has declined.[28][44] Linguistic, ethnic, and cultural differences exist between Yupik and Inuit.
In Canada and Greenland, and to a certain extent in Alaska, the term Eskimo is predominantly seen as offensive and has been widely replaced by the term Inuit [28][40][41][47] or terms specific to a particular group or community.[28][48][49][50] This has resulted in a trend whereby some non-Indigenous people believe that they should use Inuit even for Yupik who are non-Inuit.[28]
Greenlandic Inuit generally refer to themselves as Greenlanders ("Kalaallit" or "Grønlændere") and speak the Greenlandic language and Danish.[28][51] Greenlandic Inuit belong to three groups: the Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut;[51] the Tunumiit of Tunu (east Greenland), who speak Tunumiit oraasiat ("East Greenlandic"); and the Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun.
The word "Eskimo" is a racially charged term in Canada.[52][53] In Canada's Central Arctic, Inuinnaq is the preferred term,[54] and in the eastern Canadian Arctic Inuit. The language is often called Inuktitut, though other local designations are also used.
Section 25[55] of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 35[56] of the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982 recognized Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Although Inuit can be applied to all of the Eskimo peoples in Canada and Greenland, that is not true in Alaska and Siberia. In Alaska, the term Eskimo is still used because it includes both Iñupiat (singular: Iñupiaq), who are Inuit, and Yupik, who are not.[28]
The term Alaska Native is inclusive of (and under U.S. and Alaskan law, as well as the linguistic and cultural legacy of Alaska, refers to) all Indigenous peoples of Alaska,[1] including not only the Iñupiat (Alaskan Inuit) and the Yupik, but also groups such as the Aleut, who share a recent ancestor, as well as the largely unrelated[57] indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Alaskan Athabaskans, such as the Eyak people. The term Alaska Native has important legal usage in Alaska and the rest of the United States as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. It does not apply to Inuit or Yupik originating outside the state. As a result, the term Eskimo is still in use in Alaska.[58][27] Alternative terms, such as Inuit-Yupik, have been proposed,[59] but none has gained widespread acceptance. Early 21st century population estimates registered more than 135,000 individuals of Eskimo descent, with approximately 85,000 living in North America, 50,000 in Greenland, and the rest residing in Siberia.[27]
Inuit Circumpolar Council
In 1977, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) meeting in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, officially adopted Inuit as a designation for all circumpolar Native peoples, regardless of their local view on an appropriate term. They voted to replace the word Eskimo with Inuit.[60] Even at that time, such a designation was not accepted by all.[28][35] As a result, the Canadian government usage has replaced the term Eskimo with Inuit (Inuk in singular).
The ICC charter defines Inuit as including "the Inupiat, Yupik (Alaska), Inuit, Inuvialuit (Canada), Kalaallit (Greenland) and Yupik (Russia)".[61] Despite the ICC's 1977 decision to adopt the term Inuit, this has not been accepted by all or even most Yupik people.[60]
In 2010, the ICC passed a resolution in which they implored scientists to use Inuit and Paleo-Inuit instead of Eskimo or Paleo-Eskimo.[62]
Academic response
In a 2015 commentary in the journal Arctic, Canadian archaeologist Max Friesen argued fellow Arctic archaeologists should follow the ICC and use Paleo-Inuit instead of Paleo-Eskimo.[63] In 2016, Lisa Hodgetts and Arctic editor Patricia Wells wrote: "In the Canadian context, continued use of any term that incorporates Eskimo is potentially harmful to the relationships between archaeologists and the Inuit and Inuvialuit communities who are our hosts and increasingly our research partners."
Hodgetts and Wells suggested using more specific terms when possible (e.g., Dorset and Groswater) and agreed with Frieson in using the Inuit tradition to replace Neo-Eskimo, although they noted replacement for Palaeoeskimo was still an open question and discussed Paleo-Inuit, Arctic Small Tool Tradition, and pre-Inuit, as well as Inuktitut loanwords like Tuniit and Sivullirmiut, as possibilities.[64]
In 2020, Katelyn Braymer-Hayes and colleagues argued in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology that there is a "clear need" to replace the terms Neo-Eskimo and Paleo-Eskimo, citing the ICC resolution, but finding a consensus within the Alaskan context particularly is difficult, since Alaska Natives do not use the word Inuit to describe themselves nor is the term legally applicable only to Iñupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and as such, terms used in Canada like Paleo Inuit and Ancestral Inuit would not be acceptable.[65]
American linguist Lenore Grenoble has also explicitly deferred to the ICC resolution and used Inuit–Yupik instead of Eskimo with regards to the language branch.[66][67]
History
Genetic evidence suggests that the Americas were populated from northeastern Asia in multiple waves. While the great majority of indigenous American peoples can be traced to a single early migration of Paleo-Indians, the Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit admixture from distinct populations that migrated into America at a later date and are closely linked to the peoples of far northeastern Asia (e.g. Chukchi), and only more remotely to the majority indigenous American type. For modern Eskimo–Aleut speakers, this later ancestral component makes up almost half of their genomes.[68] The ancient Paleo-Eskimo population was genetically distinct from the modern circumpolar populations, but eventually derives from the same far northeastern Asian cluster.[69] It is understood that some or all of these ancient people migrated across the Chukchi Sea to North America during the pre-neolithic era, somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.[70] It is believed that ancestors of the Aleut people inhabited the Aleutian Chain 10,000 years ago.[71]
Stone remains of a Dorset culture longhouse near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut
The earliest positively identified Paleo-Eskimo cultures (Early Paleo-Eskimo) date to 5,000 years ago.[69] Several earlier indigenous peoples existed in the northern circumpolar regions of eastern Siberia, Alaska, and Canada (although probably not in Greenland).[72] The Paleo-Eskimo peoples appear to have developed in Alaska from people related to the Arctic small tool tradition in eastern Asia, whose ancestors had probably migrated to Alaska at least 3,000 to 5,000 years earlier.[73]
The Yupik languages and cultures in Alaska evolved in place, beginning with the original pre-Dorset Indigenous culture developed in Alaska. At least 4,000 years ago, the Unangan culture of the Aleut became distinct. It is not generally considered an Eskimo culture. However, there is some possibility of an Aleutian origin of the Dorset people,[69] who in turn are a likely ancestor of today's Inuit and Yupik.[70]
Approximately 1,500 to 2,000 years ago, apparently in northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. Inuit language became distinct and, over a period of several centuries, its speakers migrated across northern Alaska, through Canada, and into Greenland. The distinct culture of the Thule people (drawing strongly from the Birnirk culture) developed in northwestern Alaska. It very quickly spread over the entire area occupied by Eskimo peoples, though it was not necessarily adopted by all of them.[74]
Languages
Main article: Eskaleut languages
Language family
English ("Welcome to Barrow") and Iñupiaq (Paġlagivsigiñ Utqiaġvigmun), Utqiaġvik, Alaska, framed by whale jawbones
The Eskimo–Aleut family of languages includes two cognate branches: the Aleut (Unangan) branch and the Eskimo branch.[75]
The number of cases varies, with Aleut languages having a greatly reduced case system compared to those of the Eskimo subfamily. Eskimo–Aleut languages possess voiceless plosives at the bilabial, coronal, velar and uvular positions in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops but retained the nasal. In the Eskimo subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is also present.
The Eskimo sub-family consists of the Inuit language and Yupik language sub-groups.[76] The Sirenikski language, which is virtually extinct, is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family. Other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.[76][77]
Inuit languages comprise a dialect continuum, or dialect chain, that stretches from Unalakleet and Norton Sound in Alaska, across northern Alaska and Canada, and east to Greenland. Changes from western (Iñupiaq) to eastern dialects are marked by the dropping of vestigial Yupik-related features, increasing consonant assimilation (e.g., kumlu, meaning "thumb", changes to kuvlu, changes to kublu, changes to kulluk, changes to kulluq,[78]) and increased consonant lengthening, and lexical change. Thus, speakers of two adjacent Inuit dialects would usually be able to understand one another, but speakers from dialects distant from each other on the dialect continuum would have difficulty understanding one another.[77] Seward Peninsula dialects in western Alaska, where much of the Iñupiat culture has been in place for perhaps less than 500 years, are greatly affected by phonological influence from the Yupik languages. Eastern Greenlandic, at the opposite end of Inuit range, has had significant word replacement due to a unique form of ritual name avoidance.[76][77]
Ethnographically, Greenlandic Inuit belong to three groups: the Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut;[51] the Tunumiit of Tunu (east Greenland), who speak Tunumiit oraasiat ("East Greenlandic"), and the Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun.
The four Yupik languages, by contrast, including Alutiiq (Sugpiaq), Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Naukan (Naukanski), and Siberian Yupik, are distinct languages with phonological, morphological, and lexical differences. They demonstrate limited mutual intelligibility.[76] Additionally, both Alutiiq and Central Yup'ik have considerable dialect diversity. The northernmost Yupik languages – Siberian Yupik and Naukan Yupik – are linguistically only slightly closer to Inuit than is Alutiiq, which is the southernmost of the Yupik languages. Although the grammatical structures of Yupik and Inuit languages are similar, they have pronounced differences phonologically. Differences of vocabulary between Inuit and any one of the Yupik languages are greater than between any two Yupik languages.[77] Even the dialectal differences within Alutiiq and Central Alaskan Yup'ik sometimes are relatively great for locations that are relatively close geographically.[77]
Despite the relatively small population of Naukan speakers, documentation of the language dates back to 1732. While Naukan is only spoken in Siberia, the language acts as an intermediate between two Alaskan languages: Siberian Yupik Eskimo and Central Yup'ik Eskimo.[79]
The Sirenikski language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family, but other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.[77]
Distribution of language variants across the Arctic.
An overview of the Eskimo–Aleut languages family is given below:
Eskimo–Aleut
Aleut
Aleut language
Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)
Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)
Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)
Yupik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)
Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)
Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)
Naukan (700 speakers)
Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)
Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)
Inuvialuktun (western Canada; together with Siglitun, Natsilingmiutut, Inuinnaqtun and Uummarmiutun 765 speakers)
Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun and Inuinnaqtun, 30,000 speakers)
Kalaallisut (Greenlandic (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)
Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)
Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic known as Tunumiisut, 3,500 speakers)
Sirenik Eskimo language (Sirenikskiy) †
American linguist Lenore Grenoble has explicitly deferred to this resolution and used Inuit–Yupik instead of Eskimo with regards to the language branch.[66]
Words for snow
Main article: Eskimo words for snow
There has been a long-running linguistic debate about whether or not the speakers of the Eskimo-Aleut language group have an unusually large number of words for snow. The general modern consensus is that, in multiple Eskimo languages, there are, or have been in simultaneous usage, indeed fifty plus words for snow.[80]
Diet
Sharing of frozen, aged walrus meat. Inuit are known for their practice of food sharing, where large catches of food are shared with the broader community.[81]
Historically Inuit cuisine, which is taken here to include Greenlandic cuisine, Yup'ik cuisine and Aleut cuisine, consisted of a diet of animal source foods that were fished, hunted, and gathered locally.
In the 20th century the Inuit diet began to change and by the 21st century the diet was closer to a Western diet. After hunting, they often honour the animals' spirit by singing songs and performing rituals. Although traditional or country foods still play an important role in the identity of Inuit, much food is purchased from the store, which has led to health problems and food insecurity.[82][83] According to Edmund Searles in his article Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities, they consume this type of diet because a mostly meat diet is "effective in keeping the body warm, making the body strong, keeping the body fit, and even making that body healthy".[84]
Inuit
Further information: Inuit and Lists of Inuit
Not to be confused with the Innu, a First Nations people in eastern Quebec and Labrador.
Eskimo (Yup'ik of Nelson Island) fisherman's summer house
Inuit inhabit the Arctic and northern Bering Sea coasts of Alaska in the United States, and Arctic coasts of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, and Labrador in Canada, and Greenland (associated with Denmark). Until fairly recent times, there has been a remarkable homogeneity in the culture throughout this area, which traditionally relied on fish, marine mammals, and land animals for food, heat, light, clothing, and tools. Their food sources primarily relied on seals, whales, whale blubber, walrus, and fish, all of which they hunted using harpoons on the ice.[27] Clothing consisted of robes made of wolfskin and reindeer skin to acclimate to the low temperatures.[85] They maintain a unique Inuit culture.
Greenland's Inuit
Main article: Greenlandic Inuit
Greenlandic Inuit make up 90% of Greenland's population.[17] They belong to three major groups:
Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut
Tunumiit of east Greenland, who speak Tunumiisut
Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun or Polar Eskimo.[51]
Canadian Inuit
Main article: Inuit
Canadian Inuit live primarily in Inuit Nunangat (lit. "lands, waters and ices of the [Inuit] people"), their traditional homeland although some people live in southern parts of Canada. Inuit Nunangat ranges from the Yukon–Alaska border in the west across the Arctic to northern Labrador.
The Inuvialuit live in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, the northern part of Yukon and the Northwest Territories, which stretches to the Amundsen Gulf and the Nunavut border and includes the western Canadian Arctic Islands. The land was demarked in 1984 by the Inuvialuit Final Agreement.
The majority of Inuit live in Nunavut (a territory of Canada), Nunavik (the northern part of Quebec) and in Nunatsiavut (Inuit settlement region in Labrador).[16][86][87][88]
Alaska's Iñupiat
Main article: Iñupiat
An Iñupiat family from Noatak, Alaska, 1929
The Iñupiat are Inuit of Alaska's Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region, including the Seward Peninsula. Utqiaġvik, the northernmost city in the United States, is above the Arctic Circle and in the Iñupiat region. Their language is known as Iñupiaq.[89] Their current communities include 34 villages across Iñupiat Nunaŋat (Iñupiaq lands) including seven Alaskan villages in the North Slope Borough, affiliated with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; eleven villages in Northwest Arctic Borough; and sixteen villages affiliated with the Bering Straits Regional Corporation.[90]
Yupik
Main article: Yupik peoples
Alutiiq dancer during the biennial "Celebration" cultural event
The Yupik are indigenous or aboriginal peoples who live along the coast of western Alaska, especially on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and along the Kuskokwim River (Central Alaskan Yup'ik); in southern Alaska (the Alutiiq); and along the eastern coast of Chukotka in the Russian Far East and St. Lawrence Island in western Alaska (the Siberian Yupik).[91] The Yupik economy has traditionally been strongly dominated by the harvest of marine mammals, especially seals, walrus, and whales.[92]
Alutiiq
This section is an excerpt from Alutiiq.[edit]
Salmon drying. Alutiiq village, Old Harbor, Kodiak Island. Photographed by N. B. Miller, 1889
The Alutiiq people (pronounced /əˈluːtɪk/ ə-LOO-tik in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut";[93][94][95] plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name Sugpiaq (/ˈsʊɡˌbjɑːk/ SUUG-byahk or /ˈsʊɡpiˌæk/ SUUG-pee-AK; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are one of eight groups of Alaska Natives that inhabit the southern-central coast of the region.[96]
Their traditional homelands date back to over 7,500 years ago, and include areas such as Prince William Sound and outer Kenai Peninsula (Chugach Sugpiaq), the Kodiak Archipelago and the Alaska Peninsula (Koniag Alutiiq). In the early 1800s there were more than 60 Alutiiq villages in the Kodiak archipelago, with an estimated population of 13,000 people. Today more than 4,000 Alutiiq people live in Alaska.[97]
The Alutiiq language is relatively close to that spoken by the Yupik in the Bethel, Alaska area. But, it is considered a distinct language with two major dialects: the Koniag dialect, spoken on the Alaska Peninsula and on Kodiak Island, and the Chugach dialect, spoken on the southern Kenai Peninsula and in Prince William Sound. Residents of Nanwalek, located on southern part of the Kenai Peninsula near Seldovia, speak what they call Sugpiaq. They are able to understand those who speak Yupik in Bethel. With a population of approximately 3,000, and the number of speakers in the hundreds, Alutiiq communities are working to revitalize their language.[98]
Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Main article: Yup'ik
Yup'ik, with an apostrophe, denotes the speakers of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language, who live in western Alaska and southwestern Alaska from southern Norton Sound to the north side of Bristol Bay, on the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, and on Nelson Island. The use of the apostrophe in the name Yup'ik is a written convention to denote the long pronunciation of the p sound; but it is spoken the same in other Yupik languages. Of all the Alaska Native languages, Central Alaskan Yup'ik has the most speakers, with about 10,000 of a total Yup'ik population of 21,000 still speaking the language. The five dialects of Central Alaskan Yup'ik include General Central Yup'ik, and the Egegik, Norton Sound, Hooper Bay-Chevak, and Nunivak dialects. In the latter two dialects, both the language and the people are called Cup'ik.[99]
Siberian Yupik
Main article: Siberian Yupik
Siberian Yupik aboard the steamer Bowhead
Siberian Yupik reside along the Bering Sea coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in Siberia in the Russian Far East[77] and in the villages of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.[100] The Central Siberian Yupik spoken on the Chukchi Peninsula and on St. Lawrence Island is nearly identical. About 1,050 of a total Alaska population of 1,100 Siberian Yupik people in Alaska speak the language. It is the first language of the home for most St. Lawrence Island children. In Siberia, about 300 of a total of 900 Siberian Yupik people still learn and study the language, though it is no longer learned as a first language by children.[100]
Naukan
Main articles: Naukan people and Naukan Yupik language
About 70 of 400 Naukan people still speak Naukanski. The Naukan originate on the Chukot Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Siberia.[77] Despite the relatively small population of Naukan speakers, documentation of the language dates back to 1732. While Naukan is only spoken in Siberia, the language acts as an intermediate between two Alaskan languages: Siberian Yupik Eskimo and Central Yup'ik Eskimo.[79]
Sirenik Eskimos
Main article: Sirenik Eskimos
Model of an ice scoop, Eskimo, 1900–1930, Brooklyn Museum
Some speakers of Siberian Yupik languages used to speak an Eskimo variant in the past, before they underwent a language shift. These former speakers of Sirenik Eskimo language inhabited the settlements of Sireniki, Imtuk, and some small villages stretching to the west from Sireniki along south-eastern coasts of Chukchi Peninsula.[101] They lived in neighborhoods with Siberian Yupik and Chukchi peoples.
As early as in 1895, Imtuk was a settlement with a mixed population of Sirenik Eskimos and Ungazigmit[102] (the latter belonging to Siberian Yupik). Sirenik Eskimo culture has been influenced by that of Chukchi, and the language shows Chukchi language influences.[103] Folktale motifs also show the influence of Chuckchi culture.[104]
The above peculiarities of this (already extinct) Eskimo language amounted to mutual unintelligibility even with its nearest language relatives:[105] in the past, Sirenik Eskimos had to use the unrelated Chukchi language as a lingua franca for communicating with Siberian Yupik.[103]
Many words are formed from entirely different roots from in Siberian Yupik,[106] but even the grammar has several peculiarities distinct not only among Eskimo languages, but even compared to Aleut. For example, dual number is not known in Sirenik Eskimo, while most Eskimo–Aleut languages have dual,[107] including its neighboring Siberian Yupikax relatives.[108]
Little is known about the origin of this diversity. The peculiarities of this language may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups,[109][110] and being in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries. The influence of the Chukchi language is clear.[103]
Because of all these factors, the classification of Sireniki Eskimo language is not settled yet:[111] Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Eskimo (at least, its possibility is mentioned).[111][112][113] Sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.[114][115]
See also
Alaska Native religion
Blond Eskimos
Disc number
Eskimo archery
Eskimo kinship
Eskimo kissing
Eskimo yo-yo
Eskimology
Inuit religion
Kudlik
Maupuk
Nanook of the North, 1922 documentary
Saqqaq culture