It is necessary when providing an ethnohistorical overview of the NANA region of northwest Alaska to enlarge the discourse to include at least the entire aboriginal territory of the Iñupiaq-speaking people of Alaska, the whole area west and north of the Yukon River, encompassing 150,000 miles, from the northern cost of Norton Sound to the mouth of the Colville River. In fact, the relatively uniform Iñupiaq culture area with shared language and customs extends even further: to Siberia, the entire northern rim of Canada, and into Greenland. Although we try to limit the literature review to Alaska, and the NANA region more specifically, in some cases it is necessary to "borrow" from research dealing with other Iñupiaq-speaking groups in order to provide a fuller description. However, an assumption of cultural homogeneity is not wholly warranted, so specifying the "outside" group will be done to alert the reader when appropriate.
Notes
The entire collection of working papers from the Social Transition in the North project is available at UAA Archives & Special Collections in the Consortium Library.