# Are eskimoes tan? If yes, why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 10, 2001, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-eskimoes-tan-if-yes-why/64941 "2001-05-10T01:52:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Llardball](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f6c823/32.png) [@Llardball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llardball)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2001, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-eskimoes-tan-if-yes-why/64941/1 "2001-05-10T01:52:04Z")
I recall seeing on television some eskimoes in northern Canada. I also recall them having the same skin pigment as that of a Mexican. Was I just seeing wrong? If eskimoes do have dark skin, why? Shouldn’t they have very pale skin if they live in such a cold climate with so little sunshine? ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-eskimoes-tan-if-yes-why/64941/2 "2001-05-10T02:35:03Z")
Well, the Inuit are aboriginal, and therefore tend to have a darker complexion. It’s not really a tan your seeing. Also, for half the year in Canadian north, theres TONNES of sunshine. (24 hours worth, some days) ---
**Author:** ![MrDeath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@MrDeath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDeath)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2001, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-eskimoes-tan-if-yes-why/64941/3 "2001-05-10T04:15:24Z")
IANA anthropologist/linguist/Inuit. According to linguistics experts, the Inuit/Eskimo haven’t been in the Arctic that long (probably less than 2,000 years), having migrated from somewhere (presumably) sunnier or something. Their languages are linguistically distant from the other native North Americans’, but share some curious common traits with some Eurasian languages (e.g., ‘m-’ for me and ‘t-’ for you - fill in the appropriate vowels). I just finished reading an article in a year-old Discover magazine that links skin colour directly to the amount of UV light in the area where the population “originated” (I know, we all came from Africa, they put it better than I just did). Apparently, if there’s too much UV light and your skin is too light, your folate levels get dangerously low (1 hour in tropical sunshine for a paleface like me can reduce one’s folate levels by 50%); if there’s too little and your skin is too dark, your body can’t produce vitamin D. On the map in the article, the Arctic appears to be a relatively low-UV zone. So either there is some legit survival benefit that outweighs the vitamin D loss, or they came from somewhere else in archaeologically recent times, or maybe they just think it’s sexy and have hundreds of tanning parlors from Nome to Nuuk. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2001, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-eskimoes-tan-if-yes-why/64941/4 "2001-05-10T04:32:24Z")
Same reason as why caucasian Californians are so white. Give it 10,000 years. ---
**Author:** ![tisiphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tisiphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tisiphone)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2001, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-eskimoes-tan-if-yes-why/64941/5 "2001-05-10T05:34:52Z")
The last information I had on this was that the Inuit are most closely related to the natives of Siberia (and also of a swarthy hue), and are currently thought to be the latest of the waves of colonization coming over the Bering Strait. I am not Innu, but I know a bunch, and the Beringia Center and Yukon College between them are pretty up-to-date on this stuff. Further to links between North and South…IIRC, there was some linguistics work done and it would seem that the Navajo language is amazingly similar to Northern Dene. However, the elders of both nations dismissed any thought that they might be related. However, if anybody who’s actually doing genetic fingerprinting on the population and tracing it cares to speak up and correct me, feel free… Oh yeah… the UV thing. Yes, this is the land of the Midnight Sun, and it is pretty intense, when it’s up. However, we have relatively recently become the land of the Hole in the Ozone. We’re not quite sure what that’s going to do, aside from make white people wear more sunscreen.