Defying the Arctic Cold in the Inuit Nunangat

Or how the Tuniit, Thule, and Inuit learned to live off ice and seals

Martha Nulukie with her daughter Louisa, Inukjuak, Quebec, 1947, photograph by Richard Harrington, via Wikimedia Commons

Nunangat is the name Inuit communities across North America have chosen to describe their homelands. With its four regions stretching across the Subarctic and the Arctic, the Nunangat comprises nearly 35 percent of the Canadian mainland. A close look at the four Nunangat regions and their specificities will allow us to trace the history of the Inuit people back to when their ancestors, the Thule, first set foot on the land we now call Canada.

How vast is the Canadian Arctic?

Tanquary Fiord, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 1997, photograph by Ansgar Walk, via Wikimedia Commons

Extremely vast.

Canada can be divided into six cultural areas, and the Arctic is one of them. These regions do not have strict boundaries and, therefore, do not reflect political borders within Canada or between Canada and the United States. In addition to the Arctic, the other Canadian cultural regions are the Subarctic, the Eastern Woodlands, the Plains, the Plateau, and the Northwest Coast.

As mentioned above, the Canadian Arctic stretches from the northern coast of Quebec, Newfoundland…