She had survived conditions that killed trained men.

She had built a boat from driftwood and animal skins.

She had hunted seals on an Arctic island with a gun she had taught herself to shoot.

She would have said she did it for Bennett.

She did.

But she also did it because she was Iñupiat, and because what that meant — even when the missionaries had tried to translate it away — had not fully left her.

Her ancestors had been solving the Arctic for thousands of years.