By Amanda Thorne
Third-grade Wellington School
The Inuit people live in the Arctic of North America. That area stretches 5,000 miles from Greenland to the Bering Strait. They build their winter hunting lodges in a circular foundation of blocks made out of ice and snow. These are called igloos. Their permanent homes are made of earth and stone.
The Inuit tribes needed warm clothes. In the summer, seal skin was usually worn. In the winter, caribou skin was worn, which was lightweight and very warm. The Inuit used other skins to make clothing. Those skins were oxen muck, polar bear and birds. The women made the clothing using bones for needles and skinned and gutted the animals. Both women and men wore hooded tunics and trousers over long boots and the women wore long tunics, so they could carry their babies.
These tribes built large, light canoes by stretching skins over a wooden framework. They used several kinds of spears and harpoons. Walruses were killed by large harpoons. Smaller spears were made individually for the hunters. The length of the thrower’s spear was equal to the distance between the hunter’s elbow and the hunter’s forefinger. This gave the hunter an extra arm joint. In the winter the hunter could crawl close to the seals and throw a harpoon to kill them.
The seal, walrus and other fur bearing sea mammals supplied clothing and food to the Inuit. All parts of the animals were used. Parkas were made of seal skin and the walrus hide was made into boats. A hunter sometimes had to stand in place for hours waiting for seals. The seals come out in the summer to sun themselves.
An Inuit artist created simple birds, animals and scenes of daily life and travel. These were often applied to seal and caribou skin. Stone sculptures of animals such as wolves, polar bears, birds, reindeer and walrus were also common.
Scrimshaw was a famous technique used by the Inuits. In the late summer they hunted caribou. They made camps near the caribou’s grazing grounds and would ambush the slow-moving herd with arrows and bows.
The people that live in the Arctic are closely connected to nature. The Inuit tradition believes that every being has a spirit and must be treated with respect.
