And I clean both shot gun’s.”

Her shooting steadily improved through the spring and early summer of 1923.

She began bringing in seagulls, geese, and eventually seals — expanding from the fox traps to active hunting, working through the hierarchy of Arctic game in roughly the order that difficulty required.

The Craft That Her Blood Remembered

Among the things Ada Blackjack accomplished in her months of isolation on Wrangel Island, the most technically impressive — and the one most directly connected to Iñupiat cultural heritage — was the construction of a small boat.

The expedition had brought a boat to the island for use in coastal hunting and transport.