The monograph is devoted to the history of the formation and development of shipbuilding in Northern Russia and the Russian North. Shipbuilding is considered as one of the most important parts of the life support system of societies living in large water areas - the coast of the seas, large lakes and developed river systems. It is assumed that the life support system largely depends on the degree of development of the inhabited water area. The monograph considers a significant amount of archaeological and ethnographic material on the shipbuilding of ancient Novgorod, Staraya Ladoga, Belomorye, Ladoga, Mangazeya and Svalbard in the chronological range from the Middle Ages to ethnographic modernity. The origins of the formation of traditional North Russian shipbuilding and the path, its transformation depending on the operating conditions of ships that have developed in different regions of the North as it is developed by Russian people are shown.