As recently as three decades ago most Inuit lived a lifestyle much like that of their forbearers: "living on the land," with the men hunting according to time-honoured methods and the women performing the same round of daily tasks that their grandmothers and great grandmothers had done.

Today these people typically live in settlements, some of them distinctly urban in character. Adults work for wages and use electric appliances, children listen to stereos and run about the settlement on motorbikes. As anthropologist John Matthiasson observes, "the Inuit child of today may look back...