Peoples of the Tundras and Sea Shores

• Four main marine regions: Artic, Northwest Atlantic, Northwest Pacific or “Northwest Coast”
• Four Primary Culture Areas: Yupik/Inupiat/Inuit: Northwest Atlantic, Artic. Aleut: Northwest and northeast pacific, Northwest coast Northeast pacific.

ARCTIC

• The Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. In the northern hemisphere, the Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean (which overlies the North Pole) and parts of Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Russia, the United States (Alaska), Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
• The Arctic is mostly a vast, ice-covered ocean (which is sometimes considered to be a northern sea of the Atlantic Ocean) surrounded by treeless, frozen ground. It teems with life, including organisms living in the ice, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals and human societies.

• Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturi, meaning treeless plain. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons. Dead organic material functions as a nutrient pool. The two major nutrients are nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen is created by biological fixation, and phosphorus is created by precipitation. Characteristics of tundra include:


• Extremely cold climate
• Low biotic diversity
• Simple vegetation structure
• Limitation of drainage
• Short season of growth and reproduction
• Energy and nutrients in the form of dead organic material
• Large population oscillations

VERSUS.

Sub-Arctic Coastal Regions

• The harsh climate of North America's Subarctic region, which covers most of Canada, inhibited population growth. Agriculture was impossible due to short summers and extended annual freeze periods. Indigenous communities survived as nomads, hunting moose and caribou and fishing for needed food and living resources.


• The Subarctic culture area stretches from the Labrador Sea to within a few miles of the Bering Sea, and encompasses six Canadian Provinces, two Territories, as well as much of Alaska. The northern boundary between Arctic and Subarctic shows up in the vegetation change from treeless tundra (Arctic) to forests (evergreens in the west and evergreens mixed with deciduous species in the southeast). The area is a vast, harsh one within which to live, a land of physiographic and seasonal climatic extremes. The climate is characterized by short, warm, bright summers, low percipitation, and long, exceedingly cold winters.