Even though the environment in the Arctic prevents people from growing their own food, people still have a varied diet. Peoples in arctic regions have traditionally eaten a variety of fish, seals, whales and caribou, as well as the numerous types of plants and delicious berries that grow naturally in the Arctic. In addition, Eurasian Arctic peoples adopted reindeer domestication as their main subsistence pattern about 2,000 years ago.

In the strictest sense, the Arctic is all of the Earth north of the Arctic Circle, which is located at 66 degrees, 32 minutes North Latitude. However, there are other definitions to suit specific scientific or political interests. For instance, the U.S. Congress has decreed that all of the Bering Sea, which extends southward to about 53 degrees North Latitude, is part of the Arctic for internal U.S. planning and budgeting purposes.

There are several ways people travel in the Arctic. Skiis, kayaks and snowshoes are all forms of transportation invented by Arctic peoples. Today, snowmobiles and fiberglass boats are the most common means of transport throughout the region. However, sleds, skiis, snowshoes and kayaks are still in use.

Arctic wolves hunt in packs and mostly eat caribou. They can eat up to twenty pounds of meat at one meal!

While buffalo have always been the most important source of meat and other products, ancient peoples ate many different kinds of food. Animals such as elk, deer, and antelope were regularly hunted for food. Dogs were sometimes also eaten. Fish and shellfish were important in the diets of peoples in eastern South Dakota and along the Missouri River. Waterfowl were also occasionally hunted. Rabbits, turtles, prairie dogs, and just about any animal could be and was eaten at various times.

The Arctic environment is unique in many ways and offers the opportunity for a great many discoveries about how the physical and biologic environments function under the "extreme" conditions found in the Arctic. Several species of animals are unique to the Arctic (e.g., polar bear, walrus, musk ox) and many species of birds have their summer home there.

The Arctic is inhabited by several different groups of indigenous people, and also by relatively recent immigrants of mostly European background. In Alaska, for example, indigenous people account for about 70% or more of the total population in mainland areas bordering the Bering, Chukchi, or Beaufort Seas. In Russia, only 15% or fewer of the inhabitants along the north coast are indigenous people.

People have inhabited various regions of the Arctic for thousands of years. The earliest known evidence of humans in the Arctic is from 40,000 years ago in Western Siberia. The earliest presence of peoples in North America dates back 15,000 years when humans inhabited Alaska. Researchers believe that Greenland and the Canadian Arctic were settled 11,000 years after Alaska, approximately 4,000 years ago.

Traditional clothing in the Arctic consists of tailored skin clothing. The insulation and warmth of this clothing protects people from the harsh elements. Caribou and polar bear skins provide the most warmth, but seal and fish skin were also used. Bird skins and feathers sometimes were used in addition to the above materials for their decorative appeal. One specific piece of traditional clothing are parkas made from gut skin.

People in several countries collect locusts using large nets and by other means. Locusts are usually stir-fried, roasted or boiled and eaten immediately or dried and eaten later (see some recipes below). Locusts are rich in protein. During periods of increased locust activity, piles of dead locusts can be found in the market places of many locust affected countries.

African religions do not practice cannabalism and never have. We also have no rituals to symbolize this practice of "drinking the blood of our god, nor the eating of their bodies" as in Christianity.

Lots of vegetables, some fruit, low-fat protein (e.g., lean beef, turkey or chicken, fish, low-fat dairy, soy and egg whites, etc.) and good fats (e.g. nuts, avocados and olive oil). Just control your total Calorie intake. It can be this simple! See the Meal Plans section of this site for suggestions. In addition, various books by Roy Walford and Barry Sears have excellent, low-Calorie suggestions – see this Books page.

overweight person may eat the same amount as a normal size person. However, he/she might be eating the wrong things. Further, if you were overweight as a child it may be that you have a large amount of small fat cells in your body that are very hard to get rid of by diet.

In prehistoric times, people constructed houses out of many types of materials including hides, whale bone, sod, drift wood and snow. Today greater contact with outsiders enables people in the Arctic to construct houses similar to ones you would find in any Western city.

Because of the very cold conditions, it's important to have extremely warm shoes. Traditionally people wore skin boots, which are very warm and adaptable. The warmest boots are made from caribou or reindeer skin, although people on the coast utilized polar bear or seal skin because they are naturally waterproof. Often fish skin was used for the soles, as the scales provide good traction on the ice and snow.

The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line at latitude at 66° 32~33' North (depending on the earth's wobble) defined by the northernmost point where you can still see the sun on winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, December 21.

Studies now underway in the Arctic should lead to more reliable forecasts of weather over the Arctic and in heavily populated mid-latitude areas. We will learn more about how the Arctic influences the global climate and achieve greater insight about the climate our children will experience. We will be better able to quantify, manage and use the natural resources of the Arctic.

There is no simple answer to this question. Good records of temperature and precipitation are available for the last 50 years, but data quantity and quality are diminished in prior years. It is clear that the Arctic has undergone significant change in the last 50 years, but the changes differ in different regions in the Arctic. For example, Alaska has experienced significant warming over the past 30 years, with average wintertime temperatures about 6 degrees warmer now than in the 1960's.