50 Fun Facts About Inuit

What does the word 'Inuit' mean?

The singular is Inuk; every Inuit dialect uses a cognate of the Proto-Eskimo root for 'person'.

What is the singular form of Inuit?

Two people are Inuuk and three or more are Inuit.

Inuit descend from which prehistoric culture, which emerged from the Bering Strait region around 1000 CE?

The Thule spread east across the Arctic and reached west Greenland by about 1100 CE.

What name did the Inuit give the earlier Dorset culture, remembered in legend as giants?

The Dorset were the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture and were displaced by the Thule's dogs and better weapons.

The Thule culture is named after a place in which country, where its remains were first found?

The site near present-day Qaanaaq in north-west Greenland is Comer's Midden.

The word 'Eskimo' most likely comes from an Innu-aimun word meaning what?

The 'raw meat eater' folk etymology from Cree has been discredited, but the term is still felt to be pejorative by many.

Which two related Alaskan and Siberian peoples generally do not identify as Inuit?

The Inuit languages belong to the Eskaleut family alongside Yupik and Aleut, also called Inuit-Yupik-Unangan.

Greenlandic Inuit are known by what name?

As Danish citizens they remain EU citizens even though Greenland left the European Communities in 1985.

The four Arctic homeland regions of Canada are known collectively as Inuit what?

It comprises the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunavik in northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Labrador.

The Canadian territory of Nunavut was created on what date?

It was carved out of the Northwest Territories after the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement; boundaries were drawn in 1993.

What is the capital of Nunavut?

It was called Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987 and is Canada's smallest capital by population.

Nunavut's capital is unusual among Canadian capitals in lacking what?

Ships can reach it for only part of the year, so imported supplies are expensive.

Nunavut is home to Alert, which holds what distinction?

Nearby Eureka on Ellesmere Island has the lowest average annual temperature of any Canadian weather station.

The Inuit language most widely spoken in Canada, and an official language of Nunavut, is called what?

Nunavut's other official Inuit language is Inuinnaqtun; together they are known as Inuktut.

The main Inuit language of Canada is written in which script, also used for Cree?

A Latin alphabet is used alongside it, and Greenlandic uses Latin letters only.

Inuit Sign Language, used by deaf Inuit, has roughly how many remaining users?

It is a language isolate, unrelated to American Sign Language.

The English word 'kayak' comes from an Inuit word for the sealskin hunting boat. What is that word?

The single-seat craft could be righted by its seated paddler even when fully overturned; the design is at least 4,000 years old.

What is a qamutiik?

Inuit used them in winter on land and sea ice; the Canadian Inuit Dog, or qimmiq, is Nunavut's official animal.

Igloos, though associated with all Inuit, were traditionally used mainly by which groups?

Other Inuit used snow to insulate houses built of whalebone and hides; 'iglu' can mean any kind of house.

Warmed by body heat alone, how warm can the inside of an igloo get when it is -45 C outside?

The air pockets trapped in snow make it an excellent insulator, the so-called igloo effect.

What is the traditional Inuit lamp called, carved from soapstone and burning seal oil or blubber?

It was the single most important furnishing of a home, providing heat and light where there was no wood to burn.

The ulu, an all-purpose knife with a semicircular blade, is traditionally associated with whom?

Handles were made of caribou antler, muskox horn or walrus ivory, with blades of slate.

The amauti, a woman's parka, has what special feature?

Children ride against the mother's back until about age two.

Traditional Inuit snow goggles work by what means?

They fit tightly to the face so the only light entering comes through the slits, preventing snow blindness.

How did the traditional Inuit diet supply vitamin C without fruit or vegetables?

Cooking destroys vitamin C, but raw ringed seal liver and muktuk keep it.

What is 'akutaq' in Inuit cuisine?

Igunaq is fermented meat or fish, and suaasat a soup of seal, whale, reindeer or seabird.

In Inuit religion, who is the sea woman whose severed fingers became seals, walruses and whales?

Her father threw her from his kayak and cut off her fingers as she clung on; she rules Adlivun, the underworld.

What was the traditional Inuit spiritual healer and intermediary with the spirits called?

The angakkuq was not the leader but a healer and adviser who invoked spirits and might place a tiny ivory whale in a newborn's mouth.

Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is traditionally performed how?

The first to run out of breath or burst out laughing loses; Tanya Tagaq famously performs it solo.

What does the word 'inuksuk' mean?

A figure actually shaped like a person is an inunnguaq; one appears on the flag of Nunavut and inspired the Vancouver 2010 Olympic logo.

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics logo was based on what?

Vancouver artist Elena Rivera MacGregor designed the emblem, meant to convey friendship and welcome.

Kenojuak Ashevak, first Inuk artist on Canada's Walk of Fame, is best known for which print?

Her designs have appeared on Canadian stamps, coins and banknotes.

Which English explorer made the first well-documented European contact with Inuit, in 1576?

He landed in what is now Frobisher Bay near Iqaluit and carried three captured Inuit back to England.

In the 1953 High Arctic relocation, Canada moved 17 Inukjuak families to which two settlements?

The barren land had months of polar night; it took thirty years before they could visit home.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council first met in 1977 in which Alaskan town?

Now called Utqiagvik, it hosted delegates from Canada, Alaska and Greenland; the ICC represents about 180,000 people.

Which word completes the translation of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami: 'Inuit are ... in Canada'?

It was originally the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada and represents more than 65,000 Inuit.

Who became the first Inuk sworn into the Canadian federal cabinet, as health minister in 2008?

She represented Nunavut in Parliament.

Nanook of the North (1922), the first commercially successful feature documentary, was directed by whom?

Its star, the hunter Allakariallak, played 'Nanook'; some scenes were staged, including a half-igloo cut away for the camera.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) was the first feature film made entirely in which Arctic language?

Zacharias Kunuk's film won the Camera d'Or at Cannes and was voted the greatest Canadian film ever in a 2015 TIFF poll.

Which Nunavut town, meaning 'place of houses', is the setting of Atanarjuat and home of Isuma?

William Parry's expedition wintered there in the 1820s.

The Sadlermiut of Southampton Island, once thought to be the last of the Dorset culture, died out when?

European diseases wiped them out; a 2012 genetic study found no link to the Dorset after all.

The traditional face tattoos of Inuit women, called kakiniit or tunniit, date back roughly how far?

The Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project is bringing the practice back.

Inuit in Greenland historically obtained iron by cold-forging pieces of which meteorite?

They sliced pieces off and hammered them into shape with rocks, using it for centuries.

What is an umiaq in traditional Inuit culture?

Nicknamed the 'woman's boat', it was 6 to 12 metres long with a flat bottom for landing close to shore.

Which anthropologist lived with Inuit in the 1920s and studied the effects of their low-carbohydrate diet?

He reported the diet caused no ill effects for the Inuit or for himself.

What did an angakkuq traditionally place in a newborn's mouth to make the child a good hunter?

Loud singing and drumming also marked a birth.

How many people identified as Inuit in the 2021 Canadian census?

That was up 8.5% from 2016, with more than two thirds living in the four regions of Inuit Nunangat.

Which Canadian jurisdiction is the only one where Indigenous peoples form a majority?

Inuit numbered 30,865 of Nunavut's 36,858 residents in 2021 and form a majority in every community.

Which Canadian act first recognised Inuit as Aboriginal peoples?

The same year the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut was set up to negotiate the land claim that created Nunavut.

How much heavier is the tuberculosis rate among Canadian Inuit than among non-Indigenous southerners, per a 2017 figure?

Federal minister Jane Philpott gave the figure for 2015 in a Globe and Mail op-ed cited by Dr Kevin Patterson.