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The Arctic Circle circumscribes the Earth at 66.5 degrees north of the Equator. It is the southern limit of the northern frigid-zone and where, for one or more days each year, the sun does not set or rise. The 66th Parallel demarcation zone crowns the globe with a region of intense unique beauty and icy remoteness and circles the regions of the Russian Far East, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia. Far removed from the world’s general populace, its indigenous peoples have survived in and adapted to a severe environment few of us could imagine. The history of the First Peoples of this area is complex, with many mysteries still unanswered; however, extensive archeological, paleontological and linguistic studies have been and continue to be made. The dominant culture in North Alaska today is the Inupiat, a highly adaptable culture based on |
sea and land mammal hunting and salt and freshwater fishing, traveling by kayak and large skin boats in summer (umiaq) and utilizing hand-drawn sleds in winter. Their shelters were small semi-subterranean dwellings enhanced by ingenious cold-trap entrances to keep heat inside.
It is thought that areas within the Arctic Circle were first explored in the 9th–12th centuries by the Norse, followed by 16th–17th century explorers searching for the Northwest Passage. Martin Frobisher discovered the southern part of Baffin Island (1576–78), and Henry Hudson navigated the eastern coast of Hudson Bay (1610–11). Later explorers included Roald Amundsen, Fridtjof Nansen, Robert E. Peary, and Richard E. Byrd. Major whaling communities were established in the Arctic during the 1700's and 1800’s, taking advantage of the bountiful, if not treacherous ice-laden seas. Development of the area's natural resources was spurred by the discovery of oil in Alaska in the 1960's and now virtually all of the Arctic has been mapped. Because this region is so rich in mineral and natural resources, it has become a target for economic development, and simultaneously for protection of the world’s last true wilderness by conservationists and environmentalists. |
