Every group of Arctic people — from Siberia to Alaska to Canada to Greenland — carries the same tradition in their oral history.

They came from the north. From somewhere further north than where they live now.

We were taught there is nothing north of the Arctic. So we called their history mythology and never asked the obvious question.

But the old drawings tell a different story too. Before school textbooks standardized the narrative, drawings from the 1500s through the 1800s show Arctic people living in sophisticated underground homes — not igloos. Wealthy. Dignified. With elaborate clothing and structured communities.

Then European explorers arrived, called them primitive savages, enslaved them, and put them in zoos for public display.

And somewhere in all of that — their real history disappeared.

There are also narwhals. Every winter they swim north, past a certain point, and the satellite tracking goes dark. For weeks. Nobody knows where they go. Nobody knows what blocks the signal.

The people say they came from the north. The animals go there every year and can't be tracked.

Make of that what you will.