Years of Inuit History and Heritage
Source: Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Summary: For 5,000 years, the people and culture known throughout the world as Inuit have occupied the vast territory stretching from the shores of the Chukchi Peninsula of Russia, east across Alaska and Canada, to the southeastern coast of Greenland. It is here, based on the ability to utilize the physical environment and living resources of this geographic region known as the Arctic, where Inuit culture developed and history unfolded.
Inuit are an original people of the land now known as Canada, and their history represents an important and fascinating story. It is not just a story about an early chapter of Canadian history. Indeed it is an epic tale in the history of human settlement and the endurance of culture. Each chapter of the story provides valuable lessons and insights about issues that matter to cultures everywhere. Their history is about people and their relationship to the environment and to each other; about dealing with change as well as the causes and consequences of change forced on them through colonialism; and about how they have re-established control over cultural, economic and political destiny through land claims and self government.
Unfortunately until now, most of the research on Inuit culture and history has been done by individuals who come from outside the culture. Since the information that these individuals collected was seldom made available to the Inuit themselves, the image held by much of the outside world was someone else’s creation, not their own.
This website represents an important step in the direction of telling the Inuit story from their own worldview.