Facts for Kids

The ancestors of many Inuit came from a people called the Thule, who moved east from Alaska about 1,000 years ago. The Thule had strong tools, dogs for travel, and ways of hunting that helped them live across the Arctic. By about 1100, they had reached parts of Greenland.

Earlier people, often called the Tuniit in Inuit stories, lived in the same lands. Over centuries the Tuniit disappeared for reasons that include changing climates and new ways of life. European contact brought new illnesses and big changes to Inuit life, and colder weather periods also made hunting harder.

Inuit speak several related languages that belong to the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan language family. You can hear Inupiaq in Alaska, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun in parts of Canada, and Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) in Greenland. Each language has many local dialects, so words and sounds can change from place to place.

Many Inuit also learn the national languages where they live: English in Canada and Alaska, Danish in Greenland, and Russian in parts of Siberia. There is also a special sign language used by some Deaf Inuit people, but only a few people still use it today.

Inuit are Indigenous peoples who live across the cold Arctic and Subarctic lands of North America and parts of Russia. You can find Inuit communities in Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska, and Russia’s Chukotsky region. Because they live where the sea freezes and thaws, their homes, food, and clothing fit the cold weather.

The word “Inuit” means “the people” in some of their languages and many prefer it over older words like “Eskimo,” which some find offensive. Inuit also include groups with different names and languages, so people use names that each group chooses for itself.

Contact with new germs in the 1800s made life very hard for many Inuit, and populations fell a great deal. For a long time, people thought illness had spiritual causes as well as physical ones. Governments and churches ran hospitals and camps where Inuit were treated for sickness; at times people were sent far from home for care, especially for tuberculosis. Tuberculosis rates have stayed much higher in some Inuit regions than in southern Canada.

Today Inuit health faces several challenges. Tuberculosis and other illnesses have been more common, and life expectancy is shorter by about 12–15 years compared with other Canadians. Causes include past illnesses, changes in diet, and limited local medical services. Communities and health workers are working together to improve care and bring back traditional knowledge about well-being. What local ideas about health would you be curious to learn more about?

Inuit art grew from everyday life and the things people could find on the land and sea. Carvers used ivory, bone, driftwood, animal hides, and soft stones like soapstone or argillite to make small sculptures of animals and people. These carvings often show hunting scenes, dogs, and families, so they tell stories about daily life and survival. Today artists still carve and sell these works, and some mix old styles with new ideas.

Tattoos are an ancient Inuit art called kakiniit or tunniit, going back nearly 4,000 years. Facial tattoos once showed a person’s origin, family ties, and life achievements. Missionaries once stopped the practice in the early 1900s, but many Inuit women and groups like the Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project are bringing it back. Inuit stories also teach about spirits and helpers: the angakkuq (shaman) who talked with spirits, and Sedna, the woman of the sea who was linked to whales and fish. Sometimes the northern lights were seen as family dancing in the sky.

Traditional Inuit life mixes hunting, fishing, and careful use of the land and sea. People hunt seals, whales, caribou, muskox, birds, and fish. Their food is high in fat and protein, which keeps them warm and strong in cold weather. They also gather berries, seaweed, and other plants when the seasons allow.

Inuit invented tools and ways to travel that match their world. Hunters use a small, skin-covered boat called a qajaq and larger skin boats called umiaq. In winter they ride dog sleds called qamutik. They hunt at breathing holes in the ice, navigate by stars and stone markers (inukshuk), and wear warm clothes like parkas and the women’s amauti with a baby pouch.

About 70,540 people in Canada said they were Inuit in 2021, which was more than in 2016. Around 69% of Canadian Inuit live in Inuit Nunangat — the Inuit regions of Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. Nunavut has the largest Inuit population (about 30,865) and is the only place in Canada where Indigenous people are the majority.

Not all Inuit live in those regions. About 21,810 live elsewhere in Canada, in places like Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia. Some communities in southern Labrador call themselves NunatuKavummiut (about 6,000 people). In Greenland, most people are Inuit too — roughly 88% of the population — and they live across the parts of the island where people can live.