An ancient Inuit story tells of a girl, Kannakapfaluk (sometimes called Sedna or
     Niviarsiang), who was married to a dog as a punishment for her stubborn refusal to
     choose a suitor. Her new husband took her to his island, where they had many
     puppies. For revenge, one day Kannkapfluk put the children in her boots and set
     them out of sea. One boot landed not far away, and the children in it became the
     ancestors of the Indians. They at least were said to look human, although they had
     their father`s heart. The other boot drifted across the ocean, and the puppies in it
     became the ancestors of the qublunaq, the white men, who one day returned to the
     Arctic in their sailing ships. With their hairy bodies and bearded faces (qablunaq
     means “heavy eyebrows”), they resembled their dog-father even in outward
     appearance.

    Student Task
    Visit the websites http://collections.ic.gc.ca/arctic/inuit/pre-euro.htm
                           http://collections.ic.gc.ca/arctic/inuit/european.htm.
    With the help of the information given, try to compare the Inuit´s life before and after the
    Europeans
    made contact with them.

Historical Background

    The Inuit are the aboriginal inhabitants of about half of the world´s Arctic, from Bering Strait
    to the eastern coast of Greenland, a straight-line distance of over 6000 kilometres. Nobody
    knows exactly why the ancestors of todays Inuits began their trek into the frigid and treeless
    areas of the High Arctic and Greenland. They must have been hungry people, used to cold and
    hardship and a way of life that demanded constant movement from one place to another just to
    wring a living from a sparse land.
    After the first period of settlement, about a thousand years ago,  the Thule culture developed.
    A high point in Inuit history - a kind of Arctic golden age. Superb hunters, the Thule Inuit had
    the technology and skills to live almost everywhere in the Arctic. In many areas their summer
    whale hunting  yielded enough food to support people througout the winter in comparative ease,
    living in large, warm sod houses. Some of their villages contained fifty or sixty houses.
    But the first explorers  who come to the Central Arctic found something completely different.
    The whole focus on whaling had disappeared, and with it the elaborate culture it supported,
    including a large seasonal food surplus and permanent winter houses. What had happened?

Student Task
    Visit the website http://www.civilization.ca/educat/oracle/modules/dmorrison/page02_e.html
    and try to find out what had happened.

Building with Snow

    Nearly everywhere, except in Alaska, the snowhouse was used mainly as a temporary dwelling,
    something that could be quickly thrown up when needed or when caught by a sudden blizzard. It
    is only in the Central Arctic, that the Inuits lived the whole winter in snowhouses. And no wonder.
    For on the sea ice, what other building material is there besides snow? The  snowhouse was an a
    lmost perfect marriage of form and function. The basic shape is universally familiar: a dome made
    from blocks of snow, with a long tunnel for a door. Its chief advantages are strength and the ability
    to hold up a roof without internal supports. Four or five adults can stand on a roof of a properly
    made snowhouse without any danger of damaging. As well as strength, a snow house was designed
    for warmth and comfort, particularly if it was intended as more than a temporary living. A block of
    freshwater ice set in the roof provided light. The entrance tunnel would be very long, about 10 or
    15 metres, and built at right angles to the prevailing winds. It would also be the lowest part of the
    house, coming into the interior floor from below.

    Because cold air sinks and warm air rises, not even the breath of a draft would get in. In fact so
    effective was this "cold trap", that even if the tunnel was left unblocked it was usually necessary
    to cut a small ventilation hole in the roof.

Student Task
    Visit the websites http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF0/076.html and
    http://home.uleth.ca/sfa-gal/TWAM/vr1/pop-ups/19881069.htm try to build a model snowhouse
    with the help of the instructions given.