The Eskimo dog almost certainly has been derived from northern Asia, and is closely related to the well-known Chinese breed--the chow dog--and the domestic breeds of ancient Europe.

Even the commonest type of house dog in the Roman Empire was very much like an Eskimo or a chow in appearance.

There is a true wild dog, however, in the Yukon province of the Canadian Dominion and in Alaska--_Canis pambasileus_--a dark, blackish-brown in colour.

This may have been a parent of the Eskimo dog, but it is also doubtless closely allied to the original (extinct) wild dog of northern Asia, from which the chow and many other breeds are directly descended.

The Eskimo never under ordinary circumstances ate their dogs; on the other hand, the Amerindians were fond of dog's flesh, and in some tribes simply bred dogs for the table.
When Europeans first reached America all these Amerindian tribes, and also the Eskimo, were still, for all practical purposes, in the Stone Age.