Chipewyan, Athabaskan-speaking North American Indians of northern Canada. They originally inhabited a large triangular area with a base along the 1,000-mile-long (1,600 km) Churchill River and an apex some 700 miles (1,100 km) to the north; the land comprises boreal forests divided by stretches of barren ground.
Traditionally organized into many independent bands, the Chipewyan were nomads following the seasonal movement of the caribou. These animals were their chief source of food and of skins for clothing, tents, nets, and lines, although the Chipewyan also relied upon bison, musk oxen, moose, waterfowl, fish, and wild plants for subsistence.
When the Hudson’s Bay Company established a fur-trading post at the mouth of the Churchill River in 1717, the Chipewyan intensified their hunting of fur animals. Members of the tribe also took advantage of their geographic location between the British traders and tribes farther inland, acting as middlemen in the fur exchange by brokering deals with the Yellowknife and Dogrib tribes farther west. Until new trading posts were established in western North America, Chipewyan individuals were able to exact huge profits from this trade. A smallpox epidemic in 1781 decimated the Chipewyan, and subsequent periods of disease and malnutrition further reduced their numbers.
Historically, Chipewyan culture was depicted as rather ruthless. By the mid-20th century such characterizations were generally thought to be inaccurate. Early 21st-century anthropologists characterized traditional Chipewyan culture as one in which individuals typically preferred subtlety to overt action; these anthropologists also described social and individual flexibility (rather than ruthlessness) as important strategies used by the Chipewyan for coping with their difficult northern environment.
Population estimates in the early 21st century indicated more than 1,500 Chipewyan descendants.