Eskimo is an exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit and the Yupik of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related third group, the Aleut, who inhabit the Aleutian Islands, are generally excluded from the definition of Eskimo. The three groups share a relatively recent common ancestor, and speak related languages belonging to the Eskaleut language family.
The Yupik are a group of Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples of western, southwestern, and southcentral Alaska and the Russian Far East. They are related to the Inuit and Iñupiat. Yupik peoples include the following:
Vaccinium vitis-idaea, the lingonberry, partridgeberry, mountain cranberry or cowberry, is a small evergreen shrub in the heath family Ericaceae, that bears edible fruit. It is native to boreal forest and Arctic tundra throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from Europe and Asia to North America. Lingonberries are picked in the wild and used to accompany various dishes, primarily in the Nordic countries. Commercial cultivation is undertaken in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and in the Netherlands.
The Iñupiat are a group of Indigenous Alaskans whose traditional territory roughly spans northeast from Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the northernmost part of the Canada–United States border. Their current communities include 34 villages across Iñupiat Nunaat, including seven Alaskan villages in the North Slope Borough, affiliated with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; eleven villages in Northwest Arctic Borough; and sixteen villages affiliated with the Bering Straits Regional Corporation. They often claim to be the first people of the Kauwerak.
Christopher Johnson McCandless, also known by his pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp", was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up. McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild, a nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer that was later made into a full-length feature film.
A functional food is a food claimed to have an additional function by adding new ingredients or more of existing ingredients. The term may also apply to traits purposely bred into existing edible plants, such as purple or gold potatoes having increased anthocyanin or carotenoid contents, respectively. Functional foods may be "designed to have physiological benefits and/or reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions, and may be similar in appearance to conventional food and consumed as part of a regular diet".
Into the Wild cap is a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It is an expansion of a 9,000-word article by Krakauer on Chris McCandless titled "Death of an Innocent", which appeared in the January 1993 issue of Outside. The book was adapted to a film of the same name in 2007, directed by Sean Penn with Emile Hirsch starring as McCandless. Into the Wild is an international bestseller which has been printed in 30 languages and 173 editions and formats. The book is widely used as high school and college reading curriculum. Into the Wild has been lauded by many reviewers, and in 2019 was listed by Slate as one of the 50 best nonfiction works of the past quarter-century.
Neurolathyrism, is a neurological disease of humans, caused by eating certain legumes of the genus Lathyrus. This disease is mainly associated with the consumption of Lathyrus sativus and to a lesser degree with Lathyrus cicera, Lathyrus ochrus and Lathyrus clymenum containing the toxin ODAP.
Indigenous cuisine of the Americas includes all cuisines and food practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Contemporary Native peoples retain a varied culture of traditional foods, along with the addition of some post-contact foods that have become customary and even iconic of present-day Indigenous American social gatherings. Foods like cornbread, turkey, cranberry, blueberry, hominy, and mush have been adopted into the cuisine of the broader United States population from Native American cultures.
Salix arctica, the Arctic willow, is a tiny creeping willow. It is adapted to survive in Arctic conditions, specifically tundras.
Muktuk is a traditional food of the peoples of the Arctic, consisting of whale skin and blubber. It is most often made from the bowhead whale, although the beluga and the narwhal are also used. It is usually consumed raw, but can also be eaten frozen, cooked, or pickled.
Hedysarum (sweetvetch) is a genus of the botanical family Fabaceae, consisting of about 200 species of annual or perennial herbs in Asia, Europe, North Africa, and North America.
Inuit are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon (traditionally), Alaska, and Chukotsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.
Mousefood, Melqurat, Maqaruaruat or Anlleq is a native foraged food and medicine highly prized by Yupik people on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
The Inuit are an indigenous people of the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America. The ancestors of the present-day Inuit are culturally related to Iñupiat, and Yupik, and the Aleut who live in the Aleutian Islands of Siberia and Alaska. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
Viburnum edule, the squashberry, mooseberry, moosomin, moosewood viburnum, pembina, pimina, highbush cranberry, or lowbush cranberry is a species of shrub native to Canada and the northern parts of the US. It stands roughly 2 m (6.5 ft) tall with many stems and smooth branches.
The Call of the Wild is a 2007 documentary film by the independent filmmaker Ron Lamothe. The premise details the odyssey of Christopher McCandless as Lamothe takes a road trip across North America to the places McCandless visited. Within the film, Lamothe reaches conclusions about McCandless' death which contradict both Sean Penn's film Into the Wild (2007) and Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild (1996), on which Penn's film was based.
Hedysarum alpinum is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name alpine sweetvetch. It is called masu in the Iñupiaq language. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring throughout the northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. In North America it is widespread in Canada and the northernmost United States, including Alaska.
The Upper Kuskokwim people or Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans, Upper Kuskokwim Athabascans, and historically Kolchan, Goltsan, Tundra Kolosh, and McGrath Ingalik are an Alaskan Athabaskan people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. First delineation of this ethnolinguistic group was described by anthropologist Edward Howard Hosley in 1968, as Kolchan. According to Hosley, "Nevertheless, as a group possessing a history and a culture differing from those of its neighbours, the Kolchan deserve to be recognized as an independent group of Alaskan Athapaskans." They are the original inhabitants of the Upper Kuskokwim River villages of Nikolai, Telida, and McGrath, Alaska. About 25 of a total of 100 Upper Kuskokwim people still speak the language. They speak a distinct Athabaskan language more closely related to Lower Tanana language than to Deg Xinag language, spoken on the middle Kuskokwim. The term used by the Kolchan themselves is Dina'ena, but this is too similar to the adjacent Tanana and Tanaina for introduction into the literature. Nowadays, the term used by the Kolchan themselves is Dichinanek' Hwt'ana. Their neighbors also knew them by this name. In Tanaina they were Kenaniq' ht'an while the Koyukon people to the north referred to them as Dikinanek Hut'ana. The Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan culture is a hunter-gatherer culture and have a matrilineal system. They were semi-nomadic and lived in semi-permanent settlements.
Yup'ik cuisine refers to the Eskimo style traditional subsistence food and cuisine of the Yup'ik people from the western and southwestern Alaska. Also known as Cup'ik cuisine for the Chevak Cup'ik dialect speaking Eskimos of Chevak and Cup'ig cuisine for the Nunivak Cup'ig dialect speaking Eskimos of Nunivak Island. This cuisine is traditionally based on meat from fish, birds, sea and land mammals, and normally contains high levels of protein. Subsistence foods are generally considered by many to be nutritionally superior superfoods. Yup’ik diet is different from Alaskan Inupiat, Canadian Inuit, and Greenlandic diets. Fish as food are primary food for Yup'ik Eskimos. Both food and fish called neqa in Yup'ik. Food preparation techniques are fermentation and cooking, also uncooked raw. Cooking methods are baking, roasting, barbecuing, frying, smoking, boiling, and steaming. Food preservation methods are mostly drying and less often frozen. Dried fish is usually eaten with seal oil. The ulu or fan-shaped knife is used for cutting up fish, meat, food, and such.
