It's this time of the year again, when many Europeans and Canadians have to deal with not-so-positive effects of limited sunlight during the day. In the modern days this of course has no effect on our daily activities die to prevalence of electricity, but it got me thinking - back when fire was the source of light, how did our ancestors manage activities that required natural sunlight?
What I'm essentially referring to are peoples that had to rely on hunting-gathering to survive (I mean, once you have crops you collect all you need in autumn and then survive through the winter). Supposing that successfully hunting/gathering enough food to last a family for a day could as well take many hours, how would native populations of Scandinavia/Siberia/Canada cope with the fact that in winter the sun would be out only for a very short time?
Would they manage to get what they need in 3-4 hours? Would they hunt through the night? If yes, how? With torches? Wouldn't that spook any potential prey? Or was there simply no permanent human habitation in such regions before the dawn of civilisation?
When studying arctic cultures such as that of the Inuit, the line between the land and the culture tends to dissapear so closely intertwined one is with the other.
You have to understand that the arctic night, when the sun does not rise over the horizon, is not a time of total darkness. Light still is present:
the sun still passes near the horizon at mid-day, even if it remains below it, and provides light similar to that of a Sunset.
even when the sun is far below the horizon, arctic winters are very cold and dry which ensures both frigid weather, low humidity and clear skies. This allows light from the moon and stars and northern lights (when present) to provide enough light for normal activities. The fact that everything is covered in white snow only accentuates this.
winter hunting and gathering centered on getting through the ice cover. Seal breathing holes would be identified and stalked with a harpoon. Holes would be cut into the ice for ice fishing. Tide-induced cracks in the pack ice along the shore line would be used at low tide to gather seaweed and shellfish at low tide. The seal hunting in particular required focussing on a small hole in the ice a few cm across (possibly for hours on end) until something poked its nose and exhaled noisily - this is "quite easily" (let's keep some respect for a good hunters skill) accomplished in low light levels.
Indoor lighting within the igloo was provided by a type of inuit lamp called a Qulliq (essentially a shallow bowl filled with seal oil and a reed/moss wick - the seal oil would be melted in situ from fat pièces which were cut off with an ulu). Keeping the qullik alight was a serious responsability and an important domestic task for women. Qulliks could also be used to provide lighting when foraging under the ice at low tide.
Time of real hard darkness are during heavy snow fall and snow storms, which are times for holing up in the igloo and waiting out the weather.
Edit: I thought it might be informative to provide a link to a text giving a small idea of what living with the arctic seasons represents; see:
http://arcticjournal.ca/forty-below-traditional-life-in-the-arctic/
You may want to ask this question on /r/AskAnthropology
(No expert here, but I can speak about Canada's northern Indigenous population a bit)
Obviously there was no agriculture for Thule people (northern inhabitants) for so many reasons. It really is just Tundra wasteland up there.
Their diet mostly consists of sea creatures (seal, walrus). Hunting these little Arctic sea dwellers requires developed technology and know-how.
As for permanence, they were definitely mobile with a crazy understanding of Arctic land. Using Inukshuks to help mark the vast Tundra, and snow block houses to literally 'set up camp' anywhere where there was snow, Thule people really knew their what they were doing.
And that's not surprising! Don't kid yourself for a second, Thule people had been living in this climate for thousand and thousands of years. With this time, potent technology was invented and used to deal with the harsh climate, such as Inukshuks, snow block house (igloo), warm clothing, sled runners, ice picks, bows and arrows, drills, the list goes on.
Hoping another user can help answer what i didn't cover!