Food
The Inuit have been hunters and fishers. They hunted whales, walrus, caribou, seal, polar, bears, muskoxen and birds. Their basic food was meat and blubber. Meat from freshly killed walrus and seal. Sometimes they ate when it raw;sometimes meat was cooked over the lamp-fire. In summer, they ate vetch roots, sorrel, leaves, rosewood stems and seaweed. Collected the eggs of wild birds in early summer. Fish provided variety to the Inuit's diet. Inuit also ate blood soup. Inuit enjoyed intestines of ptarmigans and seal. Partly digested willow buds and twigs from the gizzards. Some digested seaweed from the innards of sea animals. Stomachs stuffed with partly shrimp. They sometimes held great feasts. But Inuit sometimes had to endured famine.
Clothing
Every pieces of Inuit's clothes had to made by hands. Inuit women had to learn sewing. The hides and furs were made by different animals. Most garments and stockings were made of caribou. Inuit use snow goggles to protect their eyes, it was made from bones or wood. There were small holes in the goggles for people to see. They appear to keep the sun out but they must have limited the people's vision since the slits were so small. Both men and women wore trousers and parkas. Men's trouser, which were sometimes made of polar bear fur, hung below the knees and were tied around the waist with a thong. Women's trousers have two sets, onw like the men's, the other one like a pair of shorts. The Inuit women were able to make the clothing parka. After an animal was hunted, the women would stretch the hide and pin it to the ground with wooden stakes. Then the women would scrape off the flesh. Women's parkas were bigger than men's. Babies, wore suits of the finiest fawn skin. Their mother wsa carrying the baby, a belt tied around the mother's waist. Their hair protect their face from snow, water and strong wind. Mittens were made with two thumb holes. That enable the Inuit person to switch thumbs if they became wet. The leggings were made by caribou hide just like their parka. Since there were not any diaper back then, the babies had specially designed this system where the child had a hole in the back part of their leggings. children ages two to four used that for toileting.
Housing
Inuit built their shelter by their hands. Man using bow drill, women mending garment. Igloo was the winter house of Inuit. Not all the Inuit people used igloo, some built sod house instead, using whale bones instead of wooden poles for frame. Igloos were good houses for the polar region, where the earth was frozen, the snow cover was deep and there were few trees. They had no furniture. Snow platform were left on three sides of the igloo. They were laid on the top of the sleeping platform to keep the furs used as bed covers from touching the snow and becoming wet. The summer tents that the Inuit people lived in where called tipi. The tipi was cone-shape house. Most of the tipi was built near water so they could easily fish and hunt animals. They would make a fireplace in the middle of the tipi. The tipi was easily to move. Another summer tent that the Inuit lived in was called tupid. The tupiq was looked very similar to the shape of the tent. The front of the tupiq was covered in the thin strips of the skin so that light could enter. In the spring, the lower part of Inuit houses was often made of snow and the upper part of skins. Houses were also sometimes made of whale's bone covered with sod.
Important Items
_The Inuit relied on the dog sled most of time. It is made
of driftwood, with pieces of whalebone, ivory and walrus tusk. That is
light and sturdy. Snowshoe, was made to hold a person on the top of the
snow. If Inuit people did not use them, they would sink into deep
snowdrifts. Snowshoes varied in shape and size according to the terrain
and the kind of snow. The snowshoes was a reliable source to help an
Inuit people travel by foot. The kayak is a one-person boat. It was
covered by seal skin with a tight fitting hole at the top, so person
could sat in it. Toboggans came from a Micmac word meaning ''hand
sled''. When pulling the toboggan, the people would need to wear
their snowshoes, so they would not sink into the snow. A umiak was a
wider boat. It was about ten meters long. It could carry an entire
family. Umiaks were heavy boats designed especially for whaling. It was a
larger open boat, covered by animals skin. The seal was the most
important thing for Inuit people. They ate the meat and blubber of the
seal. They ate their food boiled, raw, fresh, stored and frozen solid.
Since the meat was frozen it was bacteria free. Seal oil, which was from
seal blubber, it was used for light and heat. They used the hide of the
seal to make boots, bucket, dippers, umiak sails, boats, kayaks and
containers. Sealskin was used since it was waterproof.