What animals besides wolves do Eskimos make clothing out of?
Nearly every animal that lives here is used for traditional clothing. Mukluks — boots — are made from reindeer or caribou, sometimes with soles from walrus. Leggings are made from reindeer. Gloves are made from polar bear or wolf. Parkas are made of wolf. For a ruff — a strip of fur around a parka hood — the favored furs are wolf, wolverine, marten and fox. For hats, beaver is common, with seal and fox also used. What are the current animal issues up there? Subsistence hunting — hunting for food — is primary. Hunting and eating healthy foods are central to Inupiat culture, and any perceived threat to that tradition or to the game is taken very seriously. Threats come from industrial pollution, sport hunting and ham-fisted game management by the state of Alaska or the Feds. I hear there are mammoth bones up there. Can you tell me about that? Kotzebue is located in an area that was formerly part of the mammoth steppe. There were mammoth and mastodon in great numbers here. Bones are
