A Day in the Life of the Inuit

1. PrathikVelagapudi Mr. Barber Irwin Academic Center 5th Grade A Day in the Life of the Inuit

2. Introduction My name is Akycha Which Means Sun God I am part of the Inuit tribe My family and I live in the Canadian region of North America This is my story …

3. Journal Entry #1: Housing, Winter Brrrrrr… It was cold working out in the harshest of winter to build a house. My family and I were working to build a temporary shelter which would take about an hour or two. This temporary shelter is called a igloo. We are building it out of blocks of ice. Our regular shelters are tents, they have fur on the outside. The reason our family needs temporary shelter is because we have to follow our food source. It is hard to find a place that has a lot of food around so our family and others are nomadic. http://www.visualphotos.com/image/1x5073075/inuit_building_an_igloo http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_inuit2.html

4. Journal Entry #1 Clothing, Winter Ahh, it’s much warmer with this thick fur jacket on. The thick warm jacket was build for the cold. It had some caribou fur to make it sooo warm here, well for the Arctic winter. The caribou fur is what I would prefer to wear simply because it is the warmest of them all, and suits the winter in the Arctic best. I could wear other materials such as seal skin, whale skin, and walrus fur. In the winter I wear two layers simply for the fact that it is coooold in the arctic. The inner layer faced inside and the outer layer faced out. I also wore a parka, or a sort of wind proof jacket with a hood. It keeps me warmmmm. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/online/exhibitions/winter/inuit_costume.aspx http://www.pulaarvik.ca/youngfamilies/tradClothing.html

5. Journal Entry #1 Food, Winter Twang!!! That was my arrow hitting the Caribou with precise aim. I went to go get the animal and return home to eat. I wanted to hunt a whale but I decided to hunt a caribou since we needed the skin. There were many uses to one animal and our family and others would use it wisely. The Caribou was used for food and for the skin. The skin on the caribou was the warmest around. The whale has a few uses as well, for the skin, muktuk, and oil. The walrus was helpful as well, it was used for ivory and meat. http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/caribou/ http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_inuit3.html

6. Journal Entry #1 Tribe Characteristics, Winter Yay! I can finally hunt! Those girls must be so jealous, all they get to do was clean huts, sew, process food, and cook. Uh oh, neighboring tribes were coming, dad told me to be calm and nice with them. Hi I said, they said hi also. I asked if I could trade something and they replied what do you want to trade? I said some fur for food. They agreed and I hurried back home. I was at the border of Canadian Inuit territory and Aleut territory. http://www.snowwowl.com/peopleinuit2.html

7. Journal Entry #2, Terrain Inuit live on/in/near, Winter Crack! Whoa! Help Help I called. My dad came and helped me up. That’s why I shouldn’t run on ice especially thin ice. There is ice but I have to watch out for thin ice. My family lives above the Arctic tree line, so not many plants or trees could live past that line because it was so cold. Hmph I wonder who named that. The ice is usually flat and strong. I get water from some lakes, ponds, and rivers, all of that is good freshwater. http://www.allaboutshoes.ca/en/our-boots/overlay2.php?sub_section=910&contextual_image_shape_display=&image_array_position=1&target_table=our_boots&height=340&width=670&contextual_image=contextual_image http://www.greenlandexplored.com/Tours/GreenlandDogSledAdventures/GreenlandDogSleddingInfo/tabid/91/Default.aspx

8. Journal Entry #2 Ecosystem of Inuit, Winter Chah, Chah, Chah, Chah. Finally I can plant my own Arctic Willow Tree. Even though it won’t be useful to eat, it’s just for decoration. We get our food from the animals. Most of the animals here eat other animals for food. My mom told me that all life starts from a seed and later plants. Mom said all animals have to eat plants first to survive, then later another animal can eat that animal that ate the plant. And then our family and other family’s share the polar bears, seals, caribou, and walruses. Since most of the animals here eat other animals I don’t know where the plants come from. http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/polar-bear/ http://www.treeplantflowerid.com/Salix-purpurea.php

9. Journal Entry #2 Common Plants, Winter Ahh! My plant grew very good for the past two days. I chose to grow the arctic willow my favorite plant. All plants that grow in the arctic stay low to avoid harsh winds. That’s what dad said and he’s a genius. Wildflowers also sneak in to places. I figured out by watching closely that the caribou and musk oxen eat the wildflowers for food. I also eat some of the wildflowers. Mom uses wildflowers for boots, clothing, and floor mats. Lichen and mosses grow here too, they grow in clusters, as I observed, to grow better. Dad said that they used to eat caribou moss when other food was scarce. “Come here Akycha we are having caribou moss for lunch”, said my mom. http://lucasgarcia1.edublogs.org/ http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/04benthon/arclife.htm

10. Journal Entry #2 Common Animals, Winter Ha Cha! Blood gushed out of the lifeless creature. I gave many thanks to the creature for giving up it’s life for our families. I used a stone knife, one of the best, made by my dad, the best weapon maker here. I also could have hunted for other animals too, like seals, walruses, or even polar bears. I could have maybe, even hunted fish though it wouldn’t be sufficient enough. The whale that I hunted had a lot uses, blubber for the people and for oil, muktuk, for food, and skin for tents. http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_inuit3.html

11. Journal Entry #2 Adaptations, Winter “Dad can you tell me what adaptations we had to make once the Inuit came here?” I said. “Okay then here it goes. We used fur for clothing, and tents. We also used igloos for travel. Our families stuck together to help each other. We were in the cold so we used to use every part of the animals we could for all the resources available. Things gradually changed, we thought of religious beliefs later on, so every animal we kill, we have to say thanks to it’s spirit for it’s resources. Then, well our kind survived. That’s the story.” said dad. http://wearecanadians.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/the-inuit-people-of-canada/ http://www.crystalinks.com/inuit.html

12. Journal Entry #3 Weather Description, Winter Oooh, Ahh. Pretty colors! I just saw the aurora borealis. Even though it was freezing, I just experienced the best part of the sky! Currently it was about -40 degrees Celsius, that’s about the low temperature here, but sometimes the temperature can go lower in winter. It was currently winter where I wouldn’t see the sun for several months. Hhhhh, oh how I love the summer months, you get sun, and you can see the beautiful landscape. In the summer usually the high temperature is 10 degrees Celsius. I love it that way. Uh oh, there is a storm coming now. In storms fierce winds blow even stronger than usual. The wind picks up ice particles to make a snowstorm which makes it impossible to see anything. I’ve got to go inside now. http://www.travelvivi.com/where-to-watch-aurora-borealis/ http://p6.hostingprod.com/@treks.org/arcticthe.htm

13. Journal Entry #3 Weather’s Impact on Daily Life, Winter Weeeeoooo. Strong fierce winds were blowing against me I fought to find food for family and friends. Dad was trying too, but I couldn’t trust him to find food with these winds as well. I finally saw something move, I got my bow and arrow ready and Twang! My arrow hit a polar bear, the perfect food since my family was starving a little bit, surviving on grubs, and other plants. It was harsh trying to find food in the winter, even in the summer it was hard to find food, but not as hard as now. I put the polar bear in my sled, jumped in, and left for home. http://thegoldenspiral.org/2009/04/09/news-from-the-north-4909/ http://www.drg.tv/ProgramDetails.aspx?ProgramDetail=11140

14. Journal Entry #3 Survival Strategies, Winter Zpppppppp. I closed the thick two layer fur jacket up to fight the frigid winter of the Arctic. I went outside to hunt. It was very windy but I had to find food for my family and others. It was also foggy due to the storm, and worst of all the ice was thin. This weather would last for winter, the wind would come any day, and the fogginess comes from the blizzard which happens in winter. I carefully placed my foot in the right places, I took out my goggles, which make it more clear. I then trudged many places to find food but could not find any, I even asked the neighboring tribes but they also didn’t have much food. Then I hurried back home to deliver the news. Our family and others had to eat lichen, and moss. I love eating lichen and moss, but I would miss seal, fish, walrus, and polar bear. http://thegoldenspiral.org/2009/04/09/news-from-the-north-4909/

15. Reflection, Future Plans & Outlook for Inuit In the future I wish to become an expert hunter. Hunting with precise aim. I will need to practice but at the moment, with all the weather being bad, I can’t hunt, but on the bright side I can practice aiming and shooting at my target. I also want to be a awesome carver like my father. He made the best weapons for everyone to hunt, so now I want to be an expert carver, carving the sharpest weapons, and maybe even create a new weapons. There are also problems that stop me from accomplishing my goals. For one the weather in my region is making food scarce. We have to reside eating plants. The animals are dying alone by disease. That stops my goal of being an expert hunter. Also I want to be an expert weapon maker. The whales are leaving or dying because of bad weather, and I need their bones to make weapons. Although I can use rocks to carve weapons I want to start from the basics. Fulfilling my goals are going to be extremely hard.

16. Reflection Outlook for my tribe Eating moss and lichen is very tasty, but I’m just not used to it. I always eat animals, such as seal, polar bear, and fish. Hunting these days wasn’t going well, the animals left because of weather, or they died because of the weather. And if there were still animals to hunt the weather was stopping me from hunting them. The weather was still windy, foggy, and there was still thin ice. I think we might have to move to another part of my region. The neighboring tribes however have food, but it is very scarce there too, so they are also refusing to trade for any food. All is bad here but moving should be a good choice.

17. Reflection, Self Evaluation I think overall this project went great. The Inuit had a lot of information that I could find. I did have a few dramatical errors as my teammates said, I fixed them though. I enjoy writing from different people’s perspective, and writing from a person in the Inuit tribe was awesome, I felt like I was doing what he was doing! The things that I did not enjoy about this project were, well I loved this project. Nothing was bad about it. I think I did great on this project. I think I put an immense amount of effort in this project. I had to work on this project at home sometimes to catch up with everyone. I also cross-checked information a lot more than I needed to (In my opinion). I think I would give myself a 95 because I think, and my teammates said, that I wrote too much and it felt like an essay. That would be some points off for me, but I just love writing, I think I brought some of the readers in my story, I also put some pictures in my presentation so I think my grade would go higher a bit.

18. The End, Any Questions

19. Sources (Websites) • http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/arctic/inuit.html • http://www.school.eb.com/comptons/article-202845?query=Inuits&ct= • http://www.school.eb.com/comptons/article-9275079?query=Inuits&ct= • http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/arctic/shaman.html • http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/culture/inuit/ • http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_inuit2.html • http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Brazil-to-Congo-Republic-of/Inuit.html • http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/first_nations_inuit/index.cfm • http://peacefulsocieties.org/Society/Inuit.html • http://www.peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/080814inui.html • http://www.indians.org/articles/inuit-weapons.html • http://intermediatehuron.blogspot.com/2008/06/family-gender-roles-marriage-and.html • http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-inuit-beliefs.htm • http://www.ehow.com/about_6324128_early-eskimos.html • http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/192518/Eskimo • http://www.angelfire.com/mt/inuit/transport.html • http://hivulipta.tumblr.com/post/3630427721/water-supply

20. Sources (Printed) • Social Studies Alive America’s Past Pages 22-23 • Imagine It! Pages 99-119 • The Inuit by Suzanne M. Williams • The Inuit by Rachel A. Koestler-Grack • The Inuit by Danielle Corriveau • The Inuit by Jennifer Fleischner http://www.lvccld.org/library/hot_topics/more.cfm?db=books&guideID=44&age=3&subjectID=2