The Northern People
The Inuit

Inuit is a general term used to describe a group of culturally similar people who inhabit the Arctic coasts, they inhabit the lands from Siberia & Alaska, the NorthWest Territories, to Labrador and Greenland ,

They traditionally relied on fish ,sea mammals and land animals for food ,heat, light, clothing tools and shelter. The Arctic has very little edible vegetation but it is known that the Inuit supplemented their diet with seaweed.

Inuit, also refered to as Eskimo, translated simply means, The People. Eskimo, means eater of Raw meat, many Inuit consider the word Eskimo derogative and offensive.

Since the first days of the Inuit existence on Earth their dogs have been there with them at their sides, living with them, and hunting with them for thousands of years before sleds were even thought of as necessary to their existence.

It is estimated some 35,000 years ago the people of central Asia migrated farther & farther north to the most extreme regions of Siberia and the Arctic and took with them their jackal type dogs ( canis aureus ) they crossbred them with the Arctic wolves (canis lupus ) and later developed them over the centuries into what we now know to be the northern breeds .

By 3500 to 2000 B.C. the Northern breeds had become so established that each tribe or area developed its own type of dogs with their own characteristics ,Bone and ivory carvings dated thousands of years ago depict ancient Malamutes that are almost identical to today's breed, and recent DNA analysis confirms that the Siberian husky and the Malamute are amongst the oldest breeds of dog.

The breeding ethics of such dogs was a relatively simple process, it was almost the survival of the fittest with periodic mating to arctic wolves, only the fittest and strongest of the litters came to survive the elements and the work schedule demanded of them by their owners and their environment, so is it any surprise that such dogs are so strong willed ? As it must have taken much will power and determination to continuously haul and pull for miles upon miles in the most cruel and punishing weather known to man .

The Inuit and their dogs have held close relationships dating back thousands of years, there oldest ancestors raised wolf pups and purposely evolved canines to be their guardians, hunters, herders, and haulers. The draft /hunting combination of the Northern dogs have been an essential part of the Northern peoples culture and existence possibly since the stone age. As these people were nomadic they relied on such dogs to move them and their belongings from place to place in the harshest and bitterest terrain in the world, that evolving dogs were bred to wolves in that area is the only explanation of how their dogs were the only domestic animal to survive in that environment .

The Malhemut people in particular are a secretive tribe with little known about them or their beliefs, the secret of where the Malamute originated is hidden deeply below the blizzard snows of the Polar ice , and the Malhumet people who evolved the breed continue to keep the breeds origin a secret.

There is ample proof and evidence of Eskimo existence in prehistoric times along the entire coastal zone of the northeastern Asia , and the fact that such tribes lived in separate continents separated by miles of the Bering Strait, but the strange fact is that they and their dogs evolved with many similarities in terms of culture way of life, and religious beliefs .

Descendants of these Eskimo tribes still reside on both sides of the Bering strait , the Chuck Chi reside on the siberian side the Inuit the Alaskan side , and just like their dogs, they are very much the same but so completely different at the same time .

Historians argue whether the ancestors of the Northern Eskimo tribes came over a land bridge from Asia or across the North pole from Scandinavia if their was a land bridge it would now lie on the Bering sea floor. It is thought that around 12, 000 years ago, at the end of the ice age, Bering had a land bridge ( land bridge is basically a historic term that refers to dry land exposed during periods of low sea levels or regression once connecting what are now separate continents which enabled humans and animals to migrate from one continent to the other just by walking ) The Bering Land Bridge once connected North Asia ( Eurasia ) to Alaska
( The Americas ) .

The other thing the Chukchi and the Malhemut tribes had in common was the love of their dogs, and it was possibly because of there spiritual beliefs that they treated the dogs with much love and kindness. The Eskimo believed that all things had a spirit, just as the human did, killing or harming an animal to these people was no different than killing or harming another human, so it was the job of the Shaman to pacify the great spirits with rituals, before hunting trips, so that the souls of the dead animals would not take vengeance on them .Only the Shaman could contact and make amends with the soul of the dead animal or human, as only he could see them .

The Shaman was regarded as the main religious figure, a wise man that would bless the hunt, treat sickness, give advice and sort out problems . He was a religious and ritual specialist, capable of communicating with the great spirit often through dreams or medative states. The shaman was said to be chosen by the great spirit at birth and the Shaman grew to have visionary perception .

Most people associate the Eskimo with living in igloos, but igloos were a construction made from ice and snow used as temporary shelter while on extended long distant hunting trips, the igloo was not a permanent home, these were often large tents made from animal bones and hides .

Traditional Inuit clothing was made from the skins of birds and animals like the seal, the caribou, and the polar bear, and they learnt to sew using sinew ( the shredded fibers of animal tendons ) and needles made from bone .

Though much has changed many of the Inuit and Chukchi lifestyles remain the same, many still live their lives as their ancestors did millennium before them ,and much of their homelands remains as untouched and unspoiled by the progress of man , some of their ways have become frozen in time, and much mystery still surrounds theses fine people their dogs there lands and there lifestyle ,

Below are some pictures taken from around 1910 depicting the Inuit people, their life style and their dogs .

	I hope you enoyed the images