High Middle Ages · North America · Exploration
1215
Inuit Thule culture expands across Arctic
1215
Thule whalers from the Bering Strait pushed east along the Arctic coast, displacing the earlier Dorset people as they went. With kayaks, umiaks, and dogsled teams they reached Greenland within a century, bringing toggling harpoons and a taste for bowhead whales. Their ingenious adaptation to polar conditions, including semi-subterranean houses insulated with whale bone and sod, set the template for all subsequent Inuit cultures.