Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you find anything that says fire was a necessity for survival for paleo-eskimo cultures because I remember reading it wasn't, but I'm having trouble googling a source for or against it.
I don't know whether it's true (haven't googled it) but the natives of Tierra del Fuego were reported not to use fire much & to wander around nekkid. The natives didn't survive contact w/ Europeans very long, however.
> Among the archipelagic tribes of southern Chile it was predominantly the women who gathered shellfish on the beaches at low tide and who, from bark canoes, dived with a shell blade and a basket held in their teeth. The shellfish gatherers were careful not to exhaust the supply in one area. These people also always carried a fire on a clay platform in their canoes, both for warmth and for roasting shellfish over the coals. The men hunted roosting cormorants, penguins, steamer ducks, petrels, and other marine birds at night with torches and killed them with clubs. Ducks and geese were lured by decoys, then captured with pole snares.