Inuit Culture

Inuit Culture

Inuit describes the various groups of indigenous peoples who live in the central and northeastern Canadian Arctic, as well as in Greenland. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.

The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climatic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometers of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America and Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit of central and east Arctic. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the five-thousand year long history of a typical hunting culture which allowed the Inuit peoples and their ancestors to achieve one of the most remarkable human accomplishments, the population of the Arctic.