Arctic Indigenous Peoples: Ada Blackjack, Inupiat, Survivalist
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Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic
Lesson Plans by Liane Hicks
For thousands of years, indigenous peoples have lived in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America. Learn how they adapted to their challenging homeland with ingenious and innovative ways with Storyboard That!
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Storyboard Description
Ada Blackjack was Inupiat and born in 1898. Create a biography poster for an indigenous person from the Arctic region!
Storyboard Text
- Ada Blackjack was Inupiat and born in 1898. When she was only 8 years old she was alone with her father when he fell deathly ill. She packed him on a sled and mushed through the night towards Nome for help. Tragically, he died on the way and she had to turn around and bring him home.
- Four explorers came to Nome in search of an Indigenous woman who could translate, cook and sew for their team. Looking to make money for her son, Ada agreed. In 1921, they embarked on a mission to claim the uninhabited Wrangel Island for Great Britain (or the highest bidder). Wrangel Island was 100 miles north of Siberia and 600 miles northwest of Nome!
- Inupiat, Single Mom, Castaway, Survivor(1898-1983)
- ADA BLACKJACK
- At age 16, Ada married a dog-musher named Jack Blackjack and together they had 3 children, two of whom died in infancy. Jack was horribly abusive and abandoned the family. Their third child, Bennet, was sickly from chronic TB. Abandoned and with a child, Ada was destitute and made the difficult choice of putting her son in an orphanage until she could earn enough money to properly care for him.
- On September 15, 1921, they arrived on Wrangel Island to explore. Unfortunately, conditions on the island were extremely harsh. Rations ran out and the team was unsuccessful trapping animals for food. Three of the men attempted to cross the 700-mile frozen Chukchi Sea. They were lost and never heard from again! Blackjack was left with one man but he died soon after that of scurvy.
- Blackjack was determined to fight to stay alive so that she may be reunited with her son. Her only companion was the expedition's cat, Vic. Blackjack learned to trap foxes and catch seals. She also had to be careful to avoid polar bears! Blackjack survived for two years on Wrangel Island and was finally rescued in August 1923.
- After her rescue, Blackjack became famous all over the world. Newspapers nicknamed her "a real female Robinson Crusoe." She did not appreciate the media circus that followed her rescue. She just wanted to live a quiet life with her son. Blackjack earned a salary from the trip along with a few hundred dollars for furs that she had trapped while on Wrangel Island. However, she did not receive any money from the many popular books and articles that followed telling her story. Ada Blackjack died on May 29, 1983 and is buried in Anchorage, Alaska.
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