What Arctic women can teach us about health and strength

I came across this image on Twitter of an Iñupiat mother and child, from King Island, Alaska, taken around 1920.

I sent this picture to my wife and told her it reminded me of her and our son when he was a toddler. My wife told me she was offended, but I meant it in the most dignified way.

My wife’s genes are predominantly from Mexico and South America, and she shares the physical characteristics common to all the Indigenous peoples in the Americas. These populations descended from ancestors who migrated from Asia via the Bering Land Bridge at least 15,000–20,000 years ago.

The woman in the picture is beautiful. But what also comes through in the photograph is her vitality. Even the penetrating gaze from her baby conveys energy and health. Where does this lifeforce come from, and how can we get it?

Where did she live?

The Iñupiat inhabited the top slice of Alaska, in the Arctic Circle. They lived at the same latitude as Siberia, with Russian and Iñupiat communities separated by only 50 miles across the Bering Strait.

What was her citizenship/nationality?

In 1920, the Iñupiat were legally U.S. nationals (the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867), but they were not considered full U.S. citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Their land and governance were also subject to territorial law rather than state law, as Alaska did not become a U.S. state until 1959.

What was her name?

One interesting feature of the photo is that the woman is wearing a cross and a wedding band.

At the turn of the 20th century, when this woman was born, Christian missionaries had already been visiting Alaska natives for decades. Missionary efforts had expanded following the United States’ purchase of Alaska.

In spite of this disruption, Iñupiat parents typically gave their children a traditional name at birth. One popular Iñupiat girl’s name was Aqpayuq — meaning “kind one.” Later, due to missionary influence, Iñupiat would often acquire a biblical or Western name, like Sarah.

How did she get her perfect facial structure and teeth?

One of the remarkable features of Indigenous peoples globally, even to this day, is their consistently perfect teeth and wide jaw structure. They have never: seen a dentist, had expensive orthodontia work, brushed with fluoridated toothpaste, or consumed municipal tap water.

Instead, they:

1) Use extended breastfeeding to create chewing and sucking stress;

2) Learn early on to masticate meat, wild roots, and undomesticated vegetables; and

3) Exist in a culture of nasal breathing, where adults train their children to breathe through their noses even before they’re old enough to talk.

In the harsh Arctic environment, nasal breathing would have been a natural and advantageous adaptation for the Iñupiat. Nasal breathing warms the air before it reaches the lungs and retains moisture in the respiratory tract. Mouth breathing in subzero temperatures would accelerate dehydration, increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, and raise the risk of lung irritation and frostbite inside the airways.

What is the physiology of cold thermogenesis?

Arctic populations, including the Iñupiat, exhibit cold adaptation, meaning their bodies have developed physiological mechanisms to cope with extreme cold. One key adaptation is an elevated metabolic rate, which helps generate more heat and maintain body temperature. This higher metabolism is associated with enhanced mitochondrial function, allowing for more efficient conversion of food into energy and heat.

Exposure to extreme cold compensates for a lack of sunlight by optimizing mitochondrial function. Cold environments help drive energy production in a way similar to what sunlight does in warmer climates.

Additionally, cold-adapted individuals have greater brown adipose tissue (BAT) activation, which plays a crucial role in non-shivering thermogenesis — a process where BAT burns glucose and fatty acids to produce heat.

A faster metabolism also requires high-quality food intake, which for the Iñupiat came from raw fatty marine mammals like whale and seal, as well as fish. Omega-3 fatty acids optimize mitochondrial function by integrating into mitochondrial membranes, improving electron transport chain efficiency, reducing oxidative stress, and supporting mitochondrial biogenesis. These enhancements help mitochondria generate ATP more effectively while minimizing electron leakage and inflammation.

One little known fact about fresh, raw meat is that it contains a moderate amount of sugar as glycogen, leading to a mildly sweet flavor. In the aged meat we eat today, bacteria has consumed all the naturally occurring sugar and converted it to lactic acid. As a result, a strict modern day carnivore diet can cause thyroid problems because adequate carbohydrates are necessary to support the conversion of T4 to T3. (Cold adaptation makes T3 irrelevant since the brain will control all thyroid function.) 

How do circadian rhythms work at the top of the world?

In most humans, functional circadian rhythms are strongly tied to light exposure, with melatonin production regulated by the light-dark cycle. Near the Arctic Circle, however, light cues are unreliable, as there are periods of continuous daylight (midnight sun in summer) and total darkness (polar night in winter).

In the absence of strong light cues, the Iñupiat relied on temperature variations from movement, shelter warmth, or the timing of food consumption to help regulate biological rhythms.

For those of us closer to the equator, the lack of light in winter can lead to low serotonin levels, causing depression, fatigue, and sleep disturbances — the dreaded Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Ideally, those of us who live where the sun rises and sets should wake and sleep with the sun to optimize our biology and mood.

No matter where you come from, you need a robust circadian rhythm — driven either by temperature or light — to avoid going nuts.