It is a body of information accumulated through systematic observation over generations — a scientific practice conducted in a different framework than Western laboratory science, but no less rigorous in its connection to empirical reality.

The Iñupiat had lived in the Arctic for thousands of years.

In that time, they developed:

A detailed understanding of Arctic animal behavior — not just that seals existed, but which species occupied which habitat, how to locate breathing holes in sea ice, how to approach seals without startling them, which seasons yielded which animals, how polar bear behavior changed with the seasons, how fox populations fluctuated and why.

A material technology — the umiak, the kayak, specific types of clothing, tools made from bone and stone and ivory — that was precisely adapted to Arctic conditions in ways that Western technology was not.