Arctic Culture Groups

The famous term Eskimo has fallen on hard times among some students of Arctic culture, who believe it either means the pejorative "eaters of red meat" or the milder "to net snowshoes" — both of which did not originate with Eskimos. Some Alaskan Arctic residents accept the term as applied to them; others in Greenland and Canada prefer Inuit, meaning "the people." The following is a representative sample of general locations and original names of peoples in the Arctic regions of North America.

• Eskimo
• Inupiaq in the broad coastal and tundra regions of Alaska north of Norton Sound in the Bering Sea region
• Yup'ik in the coastal watersheds of the Yukon and the Kuskokwim rivers, which flow westward through southwest Alaska and drain into the Bering Sea.
• Inuit
• Inupiaq in Canada and Greenland
• Kalaalit in Greenland