Recent archaeological excavations in the western Canadian Arctic have focussed on Inuvialuit (Mackenzie Inuit) sites in the Eskimo Lakes area, a long inland arm of the sea running southwest from Liverpool Bay almost to the Mackenzie River. Although written information on the area dating before 1900 is virtually nonexistent, archaeological and oral history data suggest the Eskimo Lakes played an important role in regional subsistence and exchange patterns over the past 500 years. The area seems to have been the home of a distinctive Inuvialuit group which disappeared sometime prior to the full historic period.