Inuit navigation

The Inuit relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition to navigate across tundra, sea ice, and open sea, that presented, to those not familiar with the knowledge, as indistinguishable and seemingly monotonous landscapes, and also rapidly changing seascapes, with few navigation points of reference during a blizzard or white-out and when out of sight of islands, coastal landmarks, or features on the horizon.

[2] The Inuit languages allowed them to describe nuanced differences in snow and the patterns resulting from the effect of the prevailing wind on snowdrifts and ice formations.

[1][6] The Inuit would erect inuksuk (rock cairns), with various designs meeting different purposes, such as the grave of an angakkuq, or to funnel caribou to assist in hunting, which would also act as navigational indicators.

[6][7] In summer the Inuit hunted sea animals from single-passenger, covered seal-skin boats called qajaq[8] (Inuktitut syllabics: ᖃᔭᖅ) which were extraordinarily buoyant, and could easily be righted by a seated person, even if completely overturned.

The current evidence infers that their ancestors were domesticated in Siberia 23,000 years ago by ancient North Siberians, then later dispersed eastward into the Americas and westward across Eurasia.

[9] A team of dogs in either a tandem/side-by-side or fan formation would pull a sled made of wood, animal bones, or the baleen from a whale's mouth and even frozen fish,[10] over the snow and ice.