No group deliberately chooses to live in extreme conditions. When they arrive in an area, the either adapt to the conditions they find there, they die out, or they move to a more hospitable area. The Inuit are late arrivals in the Americas, and they found stronger, established groups already holding more hospitable territory. They ingeniously found a way to survive and even prosper in the northern areas that were still unoccupied or were occupied by a less adapted, weaker population. Once the adaptations existed, they continued to live in the area their adaptations suited them to even if seemingly more hospitable areas were temporarily available.
