It bears repeating that Native Americans were not monolithic. The differences in the methodology, philosophies, and technologies of different tribes and regions cannot be overstated. So with that, I can't speak to what midwest, east coast, or southeastern Natives did to navigate cold weather. I can tell you about some strategies in the southwest and Rockies, however.

What many people don't know about arid and semi-arid deserts is that for all of their punishing heat in the day, they also become painfully cold at night. And at elevation, winter can be even more punishing in the desert than in the woods. So in places like northern New Mexico, the Pecos people would build kivas - underground dwellings in the thick clay and limestone ubiquitous to the area. While it is true that the subterranean earth itself is cold, it also insulates extremely well. So with a fire inside of these structures which amounted basically to giant, singular rooms, heat would be reflected and trapped very well. The Pecos people would build ventilation to allow fires to breath and exhaust properly, while using hatching over the ladders to seal out the elements when inside. If you'd like to see one in person, you can climb down in at the Pecos National Historic Park just east of Santa Fe.

If we move over to northern Arizona (sitting atop the Colorado Plateau at well over 7K feet in many places), we will find that the Dine (Navajo) peoples utilized the same principles, only above ground. Hogans are large, circular structures consisting also of basically one giant room. Combinations of wood and soil are used to craft the walls and seal them to the elements. They typically utilize a chimney and fireplace, with a more modern standing door for entry and exiting.

Moving north into Utah you can find the Ancestral Puebloans (often referred to as Anasazi, although that comes with a tribal connotation from the Dine, and is not well-regarded). They often utilized small apartment-style pueblos. These were often cut back in the sandstone, and are marvels of engineering, considering the lack of modern tools and measurement devices. Other times, they'd be built out on the plain or at the feet of natural landmarks. They are multi-level often times, and also served as fortifications against raiding tribes due to their firm clay or sandstone structure and complexity. You can see these at a variety of locations, the most famous being in Colorado at Mesa Verde.

Now then, knowing that the structures were well-insulated and ahead of their time, what then of staying warm when outside? If we go up into Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, we can take cues from the Shoshone, Blackfeet, and Crow peoples. Before industrial hunting wiped the western US' ecology out, bison, elk, and deer were plentiful. In addition, keen and quick hunters could track down black or brown bears and moose. All of these animals are extremely hardy in cold weather, so their skins and pelts make for excellent furs and materials for boots, pants, and coats. On the famous Meriweather Lewis and William Clark hunt for a route from the Missouri to the Pacific, the two leaders and Charbonneau traded often for furs and pelts from the peoples along the Snake River and upper Missouri. As the expedition halted for winters, these clothing articles proved invaluable to the Virginians and their party who were unaccustomed to the extreme winds and cold snaps of the northern Rockies.

Places to go and learn more not already mentioned:

• Navajo National Monument, AZ

• Canyonlands National Park, UT

• Denver Museum of Nature & Science, CO

• The High Desert Museum, OR

I can speak for Mi’kmaq people of the Gaspé Peninsula. In bad weather the village would pack up and temporarily take shelter in tall limestone caves that dot the peninsula with the entrances blocked by conifer branches to let the smoke out and keep the snow from coming in. More than enough room for a fire. Many caves on the east coast were also used in summer months for storing preserved fish, salt, syrup, wood and honey. I’ve read accounts of a Mi’kmaq village being attacked while sheltering in a cave. There was a documented skirmish between the Mi’kmaq and Blackfoot people which took place during an ice storm in the 1500s. The Blackfoot set fire at the entrance to the cave killing hundreds sheltering inside through smoke inhalation. The village was plundered and abandoned, only remnants of ancient fish ladders dot the land now.

As someone who has done a lot of research on polar exploration, i think i have some insight on this as the tribes up in northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland are THE greatest professionals on the planet when it comes to cold.

How did they figure it out? Well, thousands of years of adaptation to their environment fine tuned them into the great polar civilization that that they are. That might seem like common sense, but remember, this is a society that had no writing. Part of what made them extraordinarily good at this, is extremely good oral history. These people would pass down accurate memories from 100 plus years on. So much so that during the long search for the Franklin party, one of the parties searching, potentially John Rae but don't quote me on it, used local oral histories to locate long abandoned supplies from some of the original European explorations for the Northwest passage, dating to late 15th, early 16th centuries.

So how do they do it? A few big things stand out. One, they wore big baggy furs. The europeans liked to wear many wool layers. There is a problem with that though. You sweat, and all those layers trap that moisture. Once you stop expending energy and heat, that moisture gets cold, very quickly, and becomes deadly. The baggy furs the natives wore allowed for air circulation, so they never got too hot, and they still retained much of their body temperature.

Next, there is no wood above the artic circle except drift wood. They made homes out of snow. Any native could make a home practically anywhere. You used blubber for small fires and cooking, and they are hot enough that they would sleep naked in them. Of course, they slept together under one large fur instead of separate to help utilize body heat.

Lastly, the use of dogs was very important. It allowed for these people to travel extremely quick in very harsh conditions and early carry everything they needed to survive with them.

When it comes to polar exploration, those that took the Inuit seriously and respected and studied their lifestyle, became the most successful explorers. Amundsen, Nansen, and Peary. Those that scoffed at them ended up dead or not accomplishing their goals. Examples of those are Robert Falcon Scott and Shackelton with their absurd insistence on man hauling instead of using dogsleds. Before both Scott and Shackelton took their shots at the pole Fridjof Nansen told them both, "Take dogs, dogs and more dogs." They used Manchurian ponies instead. Although Shackelton did take up bringing lots of dogs for his 1914 expedition, but never got to Antartica.

What a timely question! I hope everyone is able to stay warm and safe, wherever you are. Us Midwesterners are trying to survive this Christmas blizzard.

Your question is extremely vague but I like it as it allows me to think about anywhere in North America. So, let's look at the Pacific Northwest, on Vancouver Island.

In a study (Gahr, Sobel, and Ames, 2006) examining the temporality of plank houses, that is, how many generations of people continued to inhabit the same house, we can see some clear archaeological discoveries. At Dionisio Point, from approximately 2300-950 BP, are five plank houses. Of the many things to be gleaned from these, the most relevant are the remains and distribution patterns of hearths or fireplaces.

These plank houses, as the name suggests, are built of boards produced from local water resistant trees, like western red cedar and red woods. A key perk of those two types of trees is that they're easily splittable/choppable. Cut timber logs were split into boards using wedges and mallets. These boards are then assembled around support beams and rafters creating ~10m x 5m plank houses.

Foundations are dug out, leaving a wide pit that is about 60 cm deep. This depth provides a solid base that is resistant to wind and water while keeping internal temperatures more consistent. Dirt floors could be enhanced with planks, dried grasses, rugs, and furs. Mud, moss, wood chips, and grasses would be used to fill in the gaps of the exterior walls, while more boards and the aforementioned filler products would be thatching/planks for the roof. Open eaves and ridge vents serve as ventilation points. These houses were single entry, with entryways located in the center of one of the widest walls.

Inside, these multigenerational houses could, depending on social hierarchy and division, support about 25 people. Example, in House 2 at Dionisio Point, its interiors are interpreted to be split into four domestic sections and two 'miscellaneous' sections https://i.imgur.com/fsAHrjN.jpg . This admittedly poor screenshot details in, figure 6, the location of hearths labeled as "H" and, in figure 7, in lieu of the distribution of H, to be the different living areas for the groups of people. Immediately you can see how much fire could be burning at one time inside the plank house. One fire in the middle, in front of the entrance, and three in the corners with the possibility of another in the fourth corner. The outer areas of the house would be mostly lined in multi-use benches.

From this information we can see that a combination of factors to keep warm was used in prehistoric Pacific Northwest indigenous houses as far back as 2300 years. Partially submerged bases, covered floors, solid walls (but not insulated), roofs, multiple fires, and lots of people all contributed to keeping warm in the winter months. This is without mentioning blankets, clothing, furs, other textiles, seasonal food and drink, and seasonal movement.

Gahr, D. A. T., Sobel, E. A., & Ames, K. M. (2006). Household archaeology on the Northwest Coast / edited by Elizabeth A. Sobel, D. Ann Trieu Gahr, and Kenneth M. Ames. (D. A. T. Gahr, E. A. Sobel, & K. M. Ames, Eds.). International Monographs in Prehistory.

Edit, additional reading with pictures!

Wallace, Christina L. (2017). Architecture of the Salish Sea Tribes of the Pacific Northwest: SHED ROOF PLANK HOUSES. http://fitchfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FITCH_Christina-Wallace_final_web.pdf

The north-eastern Iroquois (Mohawks) and the Algonquins (generally the folks who lived the land near present-day Montreal in Quebec) often survived winter by dispersing into bands and hunting through the winter. The land becomes covered in snow and frozen rivers become highways for humans and animals, so it required a change of lifestyle.

Europeans obviously did not have the knowledge of the land and animals to become nomadic (you can read about how wigwams, teepees and animal skin dwellings work to keep you warm elsewhere), so they stuck to their more settled homes. However, they did have to adapt. Wood was commonly used because it transfers less heat than stone, and the foundations for homes had to be adapted to the frigid temperatures that can shatter stone if moisture is not properly managed.

The early French colonists walked the line of adopting the Indigenous tricks for surviving the winter and also pushing away the ones their considered 'savage'. They adopted snowshoes, but then didn't wear the layers of mocassins that Indigenous folks commonly wore. The French wanted their style of shoes, in an adapted version for the Canadian cold, even if they did get wet.

Other hints at how Indigenous people survived are often coloured by colonist judgement - basically the records we have are from Europeans and not from the Peoples who survived in the frigid winters for millenia. Indigenous families, for example, would cover their young in bear grease to provide a layer of insulation, and the French nuns washed off Indigenous girls who joined the convent as a symbol of washing away their barbarianism.

Additional note: There's a fair bit of literature of French Jesuit missionaries who would join the Algonquins and Iroquois, mostly to spread Christianity to them, and they are some of our earliest records of the lifestyles Indigenous people in the Greak Lakes region had over the winter. They are very, very judgey documents.

There are a lot of good posts here already, so here are a few links to some old posts I have made on this subject. All over the Northwest, at one period or another, Natives used semi-subterranean houses for winter residency. Being partially underground significantly improved living conditions during very low temperatures. I have written about these houses in Northern California here. Here is an ancient post on coping with bitter temperatures by using housepits in the Plateau Culture Area.

Copying my comment from one of the threads, here’s some info about the homes of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (commonly known as Iroquois and traditionally includes 5 nations: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk). These were year round homes in primarily upstate New York area although Haudenosaunee territory extended beyond that as well. I think I saw this elsewhere here but winter was not hunting season for the Haudenosaunee, most time was spent indoors in our longhouses.

Traditional bark longhouses were typically around 50 feet long and held one family unit which would be everyone on your mom’s side of the family (aunties, uncles, cousins, etc). If a man married a woman he moves into her longhouse. There are accounts of longhouses being over 100ft but more often they were ~50ft. There would be roughly 20-40 people living in an average house.

The siding and roof would usually be elm bark because they used to be such big trees the bark is really thick and it’s also water proof, any cracks sealed with a tree sap mix. The outside frame of the house was usually cedar as it doesn’t rot, bark left on as a bug repellent. The inside frame, beds, storage area, and scaffolding would be birch trees and the bark from birch trees are used to tie everything together (no nails, all held together with bark).

For an average 50ft home there would be about four fire pits throughout all going down the middle, beds + storage area above the beds lining the walls. Above each fire pit is a smoke hole in the ceiling for the smoke to escape, but the houses were also built with the intention of smoke collecting. All fires would be going all the time when it’s cold so the smoke would eventually collect in the ceiling and settle around where the storage areas are which packs the heat down to where people are living / sleeping. That smoke also helps preserves the food (primarily vegetables) over the winter. The walls would be lined with mats made from bulrush or cattails and thick furs to help insulate. There would also be a bark tube going from the inside, down in the ground, and then coming outside the house which helps with air flow. Those 20-40 people living there would be inside basically all winter as well because it’s so cold so the body heat also helps.

By modern standards I’m sure most homes around the world were quite cold at this time, but from accounts I’ve read from this time it’s been described as being comfortably warm.

I'll copy a post I made previously on the subject here specifically talking about snow and cold.

I'll add in a few things - often mass snow dumps and cold weather don't go hand in hand. Normally when I see it snowing that's a sign that it's warm. People did and do a lot of things to survive in winter in weather down to much colder than -30.

• people gathered in houses with fires in them.

• In many places the majority of the food for the winter was gathered during the summer. This includes fish, berries, nuts, and roots, all staples of diet. In communities that lived along almost every river in British Columbia (most of the communities, all of this seasonal harvesting constituted the majority of food, and was done in generally fixed locations at fixed times. Meat as well was often seasonal - think of the caribou and buffalo migrations/hunts by various Dene and Inuit groups in the far north, and by various buffalo hunting groups in the prairies. In particular the Metis big hunt was done once a year, with thousands participating, and going back much further in time we have numerous examples of stationary hunting locations that caught herds at specific points on their yearly migrations. These did not take place in the winter, and people preserved meat by smoking or sun-drying (more smoking the less predictable the water was i.e. closer to the coast). Men did hunt in the winter in almost all cultures, especially after trapping became a major economic force, but it often wasn't as necessary for survival as it later became when people began to be involved in more economic activities during the summer. For example along the coast, midwinter was ceremony season. In addition, my grandfather survived a lot of his childhood by snaring a lot of food close by wherever he was camping, and having your snares out every night or checking your snares every day is a pretty easy way of getting some food. Snaring food was/is a common way for kids to start trapping, and rabbits and squirrels snared are a normal part of many winter diets. These are still generalities, as Inuit for example hunted a lot in the winter, and resources vary a lot from place to place. Winter hunting was always an important fall back when accidents happened, and the men being gone a lot was also a fairly useful form of birth control.

• people were skilled at building shelters of all kinds. In the north (north of the tree line) in Inuit country people built igloos, travel igloos, snow caves, or even just wind breaks out of snow. This is of course when they are on the land and not in permanent settlements which often had permanent houses made of turf as well as igloos. These could be heated by body heat and seal-oil lamps, generally with multiple wicks. In places such as the Mackenzie delta, despite there being no trees there could be lots of driftwood and fires were fine, in fact some people still heat their houses with wood today using driftwood entirely in the area. Further south in British Columbia people lived in pit houses and hide houses, and could make many kinds of shelters easily and quickly, as well as fires. Harlan Smith lists eight types of houses used just by the Nuxalk, and other first nations as well built a range of shelters for various functions and needs. By and large these houses would be as warm or warmer than our houses, they just might take more wood to keep that way Having spent time in a long house, a good fire in the middle can warm a very large building quite quickly. That said, people who spend a lot of time in the cold can get used to it through acclimation. For example, I camp in winter with a sleeping bag, groundpad, and warm clothing. My cousin hikes in jeans, and will wrap up in a tarp in freezing weather and just go to sleep. I don't recommend it, but when you're used to it, a person can function in very cold weather. This includes adaptations like hunter's reflex where many Inuit can work all day barehanded in minus thirty weather pulling in nets, without their hands freezing because their body will pump blood to their fingers every little while to keep them warm.

• people had very good clothing, much of it still the equal to technical clothing made today. Fur-lined well made clothing is really quite warm. Also, the snow doesn't really make you that wet if you have good clothing on. It's well enough insulated that body heat doesn't make the snow melt, and if its cold enough, even more so. In particular people were careful of overexerting themselves and getting wet as a result. Caribou skin parkas are still used, sealskin leggings and mukluks are still used, and fur-lined clothing is still used today and is considered very adequate.

• If you sent me out in my coat, with a blanket and food, I do know how I would survive, and I that's the primary difference. Just like today, in the past people knew how to survive, and that made it normal. First Nations went in to areas that had resources, and they used the technologies and education needed to survive in those areas. Warmer areas were more populated, and with the right technologies, you could move in to places where nobody else was living and have abundance. That said, almost all of Canada's first nations people have migrated north to south, not the other way around, so if anything it's been warm weather tech that people have had to develop over the years.

Relevant sources - for a really detailed description of plant use, see Nancy Turner's two volume set on the topic, covering Northwestern North America.

Turner, Nancy (2014). Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America.

You can get Harlan Smith's books from the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Almost any collection of northern stories will tell you a lot about survival methods, as will writing by early explorers who analyzed the methods as they learnt them and often wrote about how not to die. One book in particular I enjoyed was the following:

Mishler, Craig, ed. Neerihiinjìk: We Traveled from Place to Place: the Gwich’in Stories of Johnny and Sarah Frank. 2nd ed. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, 2001.

this book really tells a lot about survival in the North, and I can't recommend it too highly, though my primary interest in it is because of the cultural information.

Out on the southern Plains, there was no sense of getting ahead of storms; you just hunkered down.

People would winterize their camps in a number of ways. First, they'd set up a winter camp in a relatively well wooded area. The trees might serve as a windbreak, but the wood would mainly be used for fires, and also to make windbreaks.

Around each tipi the women would install a circular fence about 10-15 ft (3-5m) high, made of branches and brush, to block the wind. Here is a website with some great photos of windbreaks, old and new.

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE%7CA132499547&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=318984a7

Inside the tipi, which was made from 10-15 tanned and cleaned hides, additional buffalo hides with the fur still on would be put up on the lower levels. A fire would keep the place warm enough to survive or feel warm, and you could wear buffalo robes too.

Winter camps would last about a month before moving on. Sometimes a huge windbreak would be built around multiple tipis. The Kiowa calendar entry for 1848 shows such camp (in Mooney's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46479/46479-h/images/287_dp750a.png