To fully grasp what Ada Blackjack drew on — even partially, even imperfectly — requires stepping back from the individual story to see the larger picture of what Iñupiat civilization had actually built.

The Iñupiat are part of the broader Inuit cultural group that has occupied the Arctic coasts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia for thousands of years.

Their ancestors moved into the Arctic during a period of climatic change roughly 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, occupying an environment that would challenge and eventually defeat every subsequent group that tried to live in it without the knowledge the Iñupiat developed.

They developed the umiak — the open-frame skin boat that Ada reconstructed on Wrangel Island — as a technology for hunting whales, transporting families and goods, and navigating Arctic waters.