March 18, 2019

Last week, on March 13, the American musher (sled driver) Peter Kaiser won the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. The Iditarod is the world’s most famous sled dog race. The 1,100-mile (1,770-kilometer) race starts on the first Saturday of March in Anchorage and ends in Nome. Kaiser, who is from Alaska, is the first musher of Yup’ik descent to win the race. The Yup’ik are an Inuit people native to the region.

The Iditarod is a famous sled dog race held every March in Alaska. Teams of sled dogs race from Anchorage to Nome. Credit: © Shutterstock

Kaiser’s winning race time was 9 days, 12 hours, 39 minutes, and 6 seconds—just 12 minutes ahead of the defending champion, Joar Leifseth Ulsom of Norway. (The third-place musher, Jessie Royer of Fairbanks, Alaska, brought her dog team in nearly six hours after Leifseth Ulsom, a more common time differential for such a long endurance race.) It was the first Iditarod win for Kaiser, who has raced every year since 2010.

The Iditarod crosses the Alaska and Kuskokwim mountain ranges, heading northwest across the state and then north along the Bering Sea coast to Nome. The race follows a northern route in even years and a southern route in odd-numbered years. The Iditarod requires enormous endurance, both from the musher and the dogs. The race follows icy, snowy trails and typically takes about 10 to 17 days. Mushers and their dogs may train all year for the race. Both men and women compete.

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The Iditarod is a famous sled dog race held every March in Alaska. Teams of sled dogs race from Anchorage to Nome on the Iditarod Trail, a dog sled mail route first used in 1910. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

At least 12 dogs and no more than 16 dogs must start the race. At least 5 dogs must finish. The dogs, usually Siberian or Alaskan huskies, are selected for speed, endurance, and courage. The sled is extremely light, but it must be strong enough to carry the weight of the musher, equipment and provisions for the race, and sick or exhausted dogs.

The current Iditarod format originated in 1973, developing from shorter sled dog races first held in 1967 and 1969. It is held on the Iditarod Trail, a dog sled mail route first used in 1910. The race also commemorates an emergency rescue mission by dog sled to get medical supplies to Nome during a diphtheria outbreak in 1925. Balto, the lead sled dog in the final leg of that mission, became a popular canine celebrity.

December 21, 2016

Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost community in the United States, will soon be renamed Utqiagvik (UHT kah giv ihk), Alaska, following a recent municipal election where voters narrowly approved the name change ordinance. The change returns the name of the town to its original Iñupiat name. The Iñupiat, an indigenous (native) North Alaska Inuit people, make up the majority of the town’s 4,300 people. Barrow lies about 320 miles (515 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle on the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Barrow is just south of Point Barrow, Alaska’s northernmost point, on the state’s North Slope.

Whale bones and a sign welcome people to Barrow, Alaska, soon to be renamed Utqiagvik. It is the northernmost community in the United States. Credit: © Michelle Holihan, Shutterstock

The name change was celebrated by local Iñupiat, who worry that their native language and traditional culture might soon be lost. Scholars at the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks estimate that only about 3,000 Iñupiat still speak their native language. Iñupiat is related to other Inuit languages spoken in the vast circumpolar region stretching from Alaska across Canada to Greenland.

People have lived in remote Utqiagvik for over 1,000 years. Archaeologists have found evidence of human activity in the area as early as A.D. 500. Native Iñupiat people called the location Utqiagvik (high place for viewing) because of a high bluff overlooking the sea. The name may also refer to a location where wild roots could be collected for food in the summer. A British mapping expedition visited the area in 1826. The expedition members named nearby Point Barrow for Sir John Barrow, the second secretary of the British Admiralty and a sponsor of the expedition. The village was known primarily by various Iñupiat names until 1901, when the U.S. Post Office Department made the name Barrow official.

In the municipal elections held on October 10, 2016, Barrow residents voted to restore its indigenous name. Fittingly, the election was held on Columbus Day, a federal holiday that honors the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to America in 1492. It is not an official state holiday in Alaska, where Governor Bill Walker signed a proclamation declaring the date shall also be recognized as Indigenous Peoples Day. In the proclamation, Walker noted that more than 16 percent of Alaska’s population is indigenous, the highest percentage of any U.S. state. Barrow’s name change is not a 100-percent done deal, however. City officials must first coordinate with Alaska state offices to make the necessary changes on government documents, maps, signs, and websites. There are also legal challenges to the name change in Alaska courts. A year ago in 2015, Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, reverted to its indigenous Athabascan name, Denali.

September 2, 2014

Present-day Inuit people have virtually no genetic relationship with the earliest populations to inhabit the region, a surprising study of genetic material from prehistoric and modern Arctic peoples have shown. The analysis was conducted by scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Archaeologists use the term Paleo-Eskimo to describe the earliest Arctic peoples who migrated into Arctic North America about 4,000 years ago. Many scientists assumed that these Paleo-Eskimos contributed to the ancestry of modern Inuit people as they were assimilated into Inuit society through intermarriage. However, genetic and archaeological evidence now strongly indicates that although Inuit ancestors and Pale-Eskimos shared the territory for a time, intermarriage and interbreeding was rare if it occurred at all.

The earliest Paleo-Eskimo people are called the Saqqaqs by archaeologists. They lived in small bands that hunted seal and caribou in the region beginning more than 4,000 years ago. The Tuniit people followed the Saqqaqs into Arctic North America in a series of migrations from across the Bering Strait. The Inuit refer to  the people who inhabited the Arctic before they arrived as the Tunitt. Archaeologists refer to the Tuniit as the Dorset culture. The Tuniit/Dorset people hunted seals, walruses, and narwhals. They spread across Canada to Greenland by about 500 B.C. But the Tuniit/Dorset people disappeared soon after another new culture called the Thule spread across the region about 1,000 years ago. The Thule people lived in villages. Whaling was the cornerstone of their culture. They also hunted on land with dog sleds and bow and arrow. By about 1700, the Thule culture had become the modern Inuit culture.

An Inuk fisher uses a pronged spear called a leister to catch his fish. Recent studies have revealed that modern Inuit are not related to the earliest inhabitants of Arctic North America. © Bryan & Cherry Alexander, Photo Researchers

In their study, the University of Copenhagen scientists collected bone, teeth, and hair samples from the preserved bodies of 169 ancient Paleo-Eskimo bodies from North America. The scientists isolated DNA from these samples and compared it to genomes sequenced from living Inuit and other Native American peoples. Native American groups are often reluctant to provide biological samples for genetic studies, but special tribal permission was given for this study.

The scientists found that the Paleo-Eskimo DNA samples were remarkably similar to each other yet genetically distinct from modern Inuit. The high degree of similarity in Paleo-Eskimo DNA suggests their populations were quite small. Over thousands of years, Paleo-Eskimo groups, each perhaps no more than 50 related individuals, spread out across the vast Arctic expanse. However, they apparently did not  interact with the Thule once they migrated into the region. The Paleo-Eskimos disappear from the archaeological record within a period of perhaps decades after the first Thule arrival. The abrupt disappearance of the Tuniit/Dorset people soon after this event remains mysterious. Archaeologists have not found any evidence of violent conflicts between Tuniit and the newly-arrived Thule. Some researchers suspect that the technologically advanced Thule may simply have out-competed the Paleo-Eskimo cultures in the rugged environment and pushed them towards extinction.

October 1, 2012

The United States and Russia have agreed to preserve the Ice Age heritage of Beringia, an area that includes parts of northeastern Asia and northwestern North America and a land bridge that once connected them. During a recent visit to Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to establish the Transboundary Area of Shared Beringian Heritage, a specially protected region that includes the Bering Strait and adjacent areas of Siberia and Alaska. Known as Beringia, this area is home to Inuit and Yuit peoples, who have a common language and traditions but are separated by international borders. A wide range of animals, including polar bears, whales, seals, and walruses, also live there.

At the Bering Strait in the northern Pacific Ocean, the United States and Russia are separated by about 50 miles (80 kilometers) of open water. But during the most recent ice age, huge glaciers covered much of the northern half of Earth and sea level was much lower than it is today. As a result, much of the Bering Strait was a vast stretch of dry land forming a bridge about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) wide at its greatest extent that connected what are now Siberia and Alaska. Most scientists think the first American Indians, following the animals that they hunted, wandered across this harsh environment into North America at least 15,000 years ago. By 12,500 years ago, Indians had spread throughout the New World and were living from the Arctic in the north all the way to what became known as the Strait of Magellan in southern South America.

The Bering Stait is a narrow waterway that connects the Bering and Chukchi seas. (World Book map)

The Transboundary Area of Shared Beringian Heritage formally recognizes the symbolic links between the people and governments of Asia and North America. The new heritage area will aid conservation efforts in this natural ecosystem and promote international cooperation on scientific research and monitoring the enviroment. The new area will formally link two national parks in Alaska–the Bering Land Bridge Natural Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument–with the newly designated Beringia National Park in Chukhotka, Russia. The region will cover a total of about 7.2 million acres (2.9 million hectares).

United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev first announced plans to create a transnational park spanning the Bering Strait in 1990, but progress towards the creation of the park stalled. Many components of this new agreement are still being worked out, but officials hope to have a finalized agreement by the end of 2012.

Additional World Book articles:

• Bering, Vitus
• Paleo-Indians
  
• Prehistoric people
• Anthropology (1951) (a Back in Time article)
• The First Americans (a Special Report)

Nov. 3, 2011

Seven high-tech narwhals are helping an international group of researchers in northern Canada learn more about the habits of this Arctic whale known for its unusual spiral tusk. In August, the researchers painlessly attached satellite radios with transmitters to nine narwhals (pronounced NAHR hwuhl). (Two of the transmitters apparently either malfunctioned or fell off.) About two-thirds of the world’s estimated 50,000 to 80,000 narwhals spend the summer north of Baffin Island, off the coast of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. This month, the radios are allowing the researchers to track the narwhals as they move south to avoid being trapped by winter sea ice.

A male narwhal has a long, spiral tusk growing forward from its upper jaw. World Book illustration by Colin Newman, Linden Artists Ltd.

The narwhal’s ivory tusk, which can grow to 10 feet (3 meters) long, is actually its left tooth. Males have at least one tusk, though some develop two. In females, the teeth grow only about 1 foot (0.3 meter) long, the length of most males’ right tooth. Most scientists think the tusk plays a role in selecting mates. Research also indicates that the tusk is a sensory organ. It may detect water temperature, pressure, and other sensations. Tiny tubes connect millions of nerve endings inside the tusk to the water outside.

The transmitters on the narwhals beam location information to an artificial satellite when the narwhal comes to the surface to breathe. The signals also relay how far below the surface the narwhal dived and how long it stayed underwater. The researchers hope this information will help them learn how narwhals are adjusting to a loss of sea ice in the Arctic linked to global warming. The research team, which is being funded by the conservation organization WWF-Canada, includes members of the Inuit community in Nunavut. The Inuit have traditionally hunted the narwhal.

Additional World Book articles:

• Oceanography
• Unicorn