By Titilayo Kupoliyi

Eskimos live in Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, Siberia and Greenland where temperatures, with the wind chill factor, are frequently as low as 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-34.4 degrees Celsius).

The Eskimos may use sleds to travel on ice and they may use boats called kayaks on water.

They do not live in igloos constantly; they only stay in them for short periods of time during hunting trips.

The Eskimos are the most widely dispersed group in the world still leading a partly aboriginal way of life. They live in a region that spans more than 3,500 miles, including Greenland, the northern fringe of North America, and a sector of eastern Siberia.

Eskimos are racially distinct from American Indians, and are not, as previously believed, merely “Indians transformed.” In fact, the Eskimos are most closely related to the Mongolian peoples of eastern Asia. Eskimos consider themselves to be “Inuit” (The People). The Eskimo-Aleut languages are unrelated to any American Indian language groups.

The Eskimo population was approximately 50,000 at the time of the first widespread contact with Europeans. An estimated 2,000 Siberian Eskimos lived near the Bering Strait, the Alaskan Eskimos numbered about 25,000, and the Central Eskimos (who inhabited what is now northern Canada) numbered about 10,000. The Labrador Eskimos totaled about 3,000, while the Greenland Eskimos totaled about 10,000.

There are idioms in use in several countries that can be translated as “selling ice to an Eskimo” or “selling a refrigerator to an Eskimo.” Both are used to describe a pointless activity, for example, when someone is given something that they already have plenty of.

But it turns out that selling a refrigerator to an Eskimo is not so pointless after all, because Eskimos need refrigerators as well.

A refrigerator, by definition, is an appliance, box or even a room that keeps food and drinks cold. Naturally, we would not expect Eskimos, people residing in various Arctic regions of the world, to need refrigerators, but they do.

Eskimos use refrigerators, not to keep food cold, but to keep food warm. Since the climate is very cold in the places where Eskimos reside, food can develop freezer burn easily if left unprotected.

If Eskimos do not have access to refrigerators, they may use animal skins to keep food warm.

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