National Park After Dark - Last One Standing: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

In this 3 part series - we tell the story of an arctic expedition and the survival story of Ada Blackjack. Ada, an Inuit woman, joins a team of 4 men to the remote Wrangel Island to prove that it is survivable. A polar bear habitat and known for tumultuous weather conditions, no human has successfully survived here for long - until Ada arrives. Join us for a LIVE show in Denver! Tickets HEREFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Skylight Frame: Get $15 off a Skylight Frame with promo code PARK. MasterClass: Use our link and give one annual membership to get one free.Uncommon Goods: Use our link and get 15% off your next gift. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Work your magic Throughout history When humans discover new land around the world They have attempted to claim it as their own They colonize it and live off of that land To create their own communities there That history is here in the United States You can find that same story in countries throughout Africa, Europe, Australia, within small islands off the coast of Asia, the Middle East, and when you really think of it, almost every country can tell a similar story. But when you look at a map, there are places around the globe that do not have large populations of people residing there. Antarctica, Greenland, Mongolia, Siberia, the Sahara Desert, and Northern Canada, just to name a couple of them.

What all of these places have in common are that their resources are hard to come by and it is difficult for humans to live there. So this brings me to my question. Why on earth would anyone want to colonize Rangel Island? An island known to be a polar bear's nesting ground. A place that regularly reaches negative degree temperatures, gale force winds, and is cut off from the rest of the world, half of the the year by miles and miles of ice. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. Hope you had a great holiday. Good to be back. And I am so ready for this episode because Cassie has been talking it up for the last like two weeks.

I will just say right off the bat here is we are sit down, get comfortable because we are starting the first episode of a three. re-part survival story series. A series is a good term. I like that. I'm like Cassie is rewriting a novel. So it's an audiobook. Get comfy. Legitimately almost. So it's funny you say that because I do have a book recommendation for this entire episode, which is where I got most of my research, not all of it, but most of it. It's called A True Story of Survival in the Arctic. It's really good. It's an amazing book. It's very long. It's a really long book. It's like 500 pages. but it's a really good book. It's a really good read.

And we're going to be talking about the survival story of Ada Blackjack along with some people that she was out on an expedition with. But it's very interesting. And I tried to condense it. I was trying to condense it into one episode. But I got like 25 pages into my notes and I wasn't even close to done with the story. And I'm like, okay, we have to make this into a longer episode. And then I asked on Instagram if you would all be okay with a three-part series.

because this is so long. And overwhelmingly, the majority was, yes, please do a three-part series, and we got a lot of messages about it. So we're going to be diving right in. Well, happy holidays to everyone. You got your wish. All of December, a survival story. All right, well, lay it on me. You said the Arctic, which is somewhere we haven't gone yet, so I'm psyched. Yeah. And this story is going to be pretty interesting because we are, of course, going to be visiting a national park. But we're also going to be visiting a wildlife preserve that is preserved for really interesting reasons and is an interesting area. But we're going to start our story out at the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, which is around Noam, Alaska. Do you know why I know of Noam Alaska?

Because of your story that you did on Balto? No. I was like, wait, what story did I do? No, no, no. Have you ever seen the fourth kind? No. The Alien movie? Mm-mm.

Okay. Well, then never mind. That's how I know it. You should watch it. Actually, don't. You wouldn't like it. I don't think. It's really creepy. It's scary. I'm really convinced. It's creepy. I just don't think you would like it, really. Okay. But for any extraterrestrial fan, definitely watch it. Okay. Go on. Noam Alaska. All right. Well, we're going to the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, which is around Noam Alaska, which is on the Seward Peninsula in the northwest corner of Alaska. It was originally established as a national monument. in 1978, but it was later designated as a national preserve in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. There was this federal law that was signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2nd, 1980 that gave special protections to land in Alaska, allowing for national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, and further conservation areas to be established.

And the act provided 43,585,000 acres of new national parklands in Alaska. And this included the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. This is the most remote area of protected land in the entire United States. And because of how remote it is, the park only boasts about 4,000 visitors per year. Whoa. 4,000? That's it. That's it. And I have to wonder if some of that are just the people who live around Nome.

Well, yeah, you got to imagine. Like, they're locals. Yeah, it's not a tourist area. But very cool. If you look up pictures, it's beautiful. And the park headquarters and visitor center is located in Nome, Alaska because it is so close. And Nome is a very, very rural community, which is heavily known for its gold rush history and being the finish line to the Iditarod sled dog race, which is where we kind of talked about it with you as well.

With Togo and Balto, yeah. Mm-hmm. Nome, Alaska and the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve is also known for its deeply rooted history in Alaskan native cultures, which is something that we're going to be diving into for this episode, especially because Ada Blackjack was an Inuit person native to Alaska. This National Park preserves some of the key reasons that civilizations came to exist inside the Western Hemisphere during the Pleistocene epoch, which we already talked about in your episode a little bit, your resurrection episode. Yeah. But this period lasted from about two million. and 580,000 years ago to just about 11,700 years ago. And just as a little reminder for people, this was a glacial period where much of the

earth's landmasses was created through shifting and changing glaciers and climates. And I think that this national park is really cool because, I mean, I'll jump right into it, but it's so cool because there's so much history from hundreds and thousands and millions of years ago that still are here. So years ago, the continents looked much differently. As many of you have probably learned before, about 200 to 300 million years ago, it's believed that the earth was a single continent called Pangia. Over millions of years, the world has changed,

and during the Pleistocene epoch, aka the Ice Age, Alaska looked much different, and there is still evidence of that today. Within this national park lies the remnants of the Bering Land Bridge, which is also known as Beringia, which was once the land that connected Asia with North America. more than 13,000 years ago. Most of this land now is under the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas. However, part of it remains within this national park and can be visited today.

During the Ice Age, it is believed that this was a migration route for animals, plants, and even people when the ocean levels were low enough to cross it. It is believed that it was filled with rich diversity of grasses and herbs. There were patches of spruce and birch forests and alder trees. As climate change, though, animals and people were forced to migrate. During certain times in history, this land bridge was up to 620 miles wide, which is 1,000 kilometers, and covered a total of 620,000 square miles. And today, there are the remnants of this bridge in the form of islands within the ocean.

And there are a series of five islands that help make up Borincia. It is believed that the very first people to ever cross this bridge and come into the Alaska, territory to create a new life, although it was not Alaska at the time, was the Alaskan Inuit people. It's believed that a small population of people from Serbia lived on Beringia before eventually settling in Alaska. They thrived here for thousands of years before ever encountering European people. Today there is a huge presence of Alaskan indigenous people throughout Alaska, and there are at least 20 distinct indigenous languages. There are several cultural groups within the northwest, which is mainly home to the Inuit people. Today, our story is going to center around an Inuit woman who lived in Alaska in the early 1900s,

who is Ada Blackjack and her story of survival. Ada Blackjack finds herself on an expedition into the Arctic as the only Inuit person and the only woman. She signs up to live and work in grueling weather conditions, and when the trip doesn't go as planned, She stays alive for years in one of the coldest places on the planet with little to no prior survival skills. Now, before we go into her story, I want to tell you who she was and why she agreed to go on such an expedition. Perfect. But I do want to just back up for one second. Okay.

You said years. She survived for years. Multiple. Okay. No wonder this is a three-part episode. It's all coming together now. How would the world? Yeah, it's not like shoes out there for a month or...

Yeah, how in the world would you have condensed this into one? Yeah. I'm already condensing years worth of survival into three episodes. Right, exactly. Okay. All right, let's learn about her. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want.

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Solomon is an area located outside of Nome, Alaska along the coast. It was originally established by the Fish River tribe, who created fishing and hunting camps along the Bonanza and Salomonza. Solomon Rivers. In 1890, gold was discovered in the Solomon River and Solomon became a booming mining town. Over 2,000 settlers moved in creating a post office, several saloons, a railroad terminal, and a ferry dock. When Ada was only eight years old, her father died of food poisoning, and after, her mother decided to send her to Nome Alaska to a mission school. Here she was taught religion, how to read and write in English, sew, and cook the food of quote unquote white people. These mission schools were known to forcibly remove children from their families and punish them for speaking their native languages or for practicing their cultural beliefs.

Often these schools that she had been sent to were known to strip children of their native cultures and force them to conform to white settlers' lifestyles. She started there very young. She was only eight years old. And by the time Ada was only 16 years old, she was married to a man by the name of Jack Black Jack. Jack was a local musher, and when the two of them married, they moved to the Seward Peninsula, which was about 40 miles outside of Gnome, which today is part of the Beringland Bridge National Preserve. Their marriage was short, but it was a very traumatic one. They had three children together, but only one of them survived infancy. Jack was a terrible husband, who often beat Ada and starved her. They live far away from any other people, and they were very isolated. In 1921, when Ada was only 22 years old, Jack left her and her five-year-old son,

deserting them both, leaving them alone in the Seward Peninsula with no way to reach civilization. With Ada having no money and no means to feed her son, who his name was Bennett, she made the difficult decision to walk the 40 miles back to gnome with him. The event that really sparked this decision to walk back was that Bennett had become sick with tuberculosis. And we've talked about tuberculosis a little bit in other, episodes, but just as a reminder of what it is, tuberculosis is an infectious disease that mainly affects your lungs. Symptoms include coughing, coughing up blood or mucus, chest pain when breathing, fatigue, fever, night sweats, loss of appetite. It can also affect other areas of the body,

including your kidneys, spine, and brain. Without treatment, tuberculosis is and can be fatal. At the time in 1920, tuberculosis had been nicknamed the robber of youth because it had significantly higher death rates among children. Death usually resulted after several years of being infected without treatment. Now because Bennett was so sick, she did decide that she needed to go back to Nome. She had her sister, her family that lived there, and there were also better job opportunities. So despite the difficult weather conditions and having to carry Bennett whenever he became too tired, Ada walked the full 40 miles back. And how old was Bennett at this point? Five years old. Wow. It's just a kid. And when she returned, Nome had

changed from what she had known it before. In the early 1900s, it was a bustling mining town with a population over 12,000 people. There were plenty of jobs for seamstresses and cooks, the two working skills that she had been taught, but by the 1920s, the gold rush was over and Noam only had a population of 852 people. It was filled with poverty and jobs were very difficult to find. Crime was extreme. There was no safe drinking water and many of the people who did remain there were dangerous. Although she did manage to find a job housekeeping and sewing, her wages were not enough to support both of her and Bennett, especially because Bennett needed life-saving medical treatments that she couldn't afford. With no other job prospects or means to make a livable wage, Ada had to make the

extremely difficult decision to leave Bennett in the care of an orphanage. They would be able to feed and clothe him there, and they would be able to take care of some of his medical needs. She was heartbroken over the decision, but the day she dropped him off, she vowed that that she would find a better life for both of them, and she would return with the money and the meads to take care of him and get him the medical attention that he needed. Unbeknownst to Ada at the time, her opportunity to create this life she wanted

was about to be offered to her in the form of a grueling expedition. Phil Halmer, Stephenson, an Arctic explorer from Canada, had an expedition to the Arctic that he had been planning for years. He was an explorer and ethnologist, which is a person who studies the characteristics of different cultures and their relationship with each other, such as culture and social relationships. He was known for his Arctic exploration and had a stint himself where he survived in Northern Canada for years alone before anyone had discovered he was actually alive.

He believed that the Arctic was livable, like anywhere else on the planet, if he knew how to navigate the terrain. He spent a lot of time educating people of the beauty of the land, and he rejected the notion that it was a barren, icy, lifeless tundra. And in fact, he boasted of the amount of life that thrived in wintry landscapes. He believed through education he could inspire others to want to colonize the Arctic areas and use their resources. Specifically, he wanted to colonize Rangel Island.

Oh, where Rangel St. Elias is now? No, it's a similar name. And actually, when you Google Rangel Island, that's the first thing that comes up. I think maybe because we're located in the United States. But Rangel Island is actually the 91st largest island in the world that is now a part of Russia. And it is located in the Arctic Ocean northwest of Alaska. Okay. So it's pretty close to Alaska.

If you look at a map, Russia and Alaska are neighbors. You can wave to each other pretty much. So it's not that far from Alaska, but it is Russian territory. While it is now a part of Russia during this period in the 1920s, it was actually largely debated on who had the rights of it, though. It was between Russia, America, Canada, and the UK. Each country had significant ties to using the island, but no one had ever officially established ownership. Partly, because it was such a treacherous place to be,

no one stayed there very long. Wrangell Island was established as Rangel Island Reserve, a federal nature reserve in 2004, based on its diversity of wildlife that resides there. And I think it's really important to learn a little bit about this island because we're going to spend a lot of time there, and it's a really interesting place. Wrangel Island was not glaciated during the Ice Age,

which means that now it has exceptionally high levels of biodiversity in this region. It is also the last known place in the world where woolly mammoths survived, which they survived up until about 4,000 years ago. That seems so recent. It does. It's kind of far, but when you think of the scheme of things, it's not that long ago. This island is home to the world's largest population of Pacific Wall

and around 900 mucks oxen. This is one of the largest land mammals who once roamed beside woolly mammoths. It is also the second highest density of polar bear dens in the world. Each year between 300 to 350 female polar bears come here to raise their cubs each winter. Because of this, the island has also earned the nickname the Arctic polar bear's nursery. The second highest population is on a neighboring island, Harold Island. It is also an important and feeding ground for gray whales who migrate from Mexico, and also the northernmost nesting grounds for 100 migratory bird species, many of whom are endangered. Currently, there are 417 species of plants on the island, with 23 of them being endemic to the region. The island has

more plant species than any other Arctic island there is. So this is giving me a mixture of emotions, because you're saying that we're going to be spending a lot of time here, which means I'm guessing Ada is going to be here. Mm-hmm. And it's great that there's so much biodiversity and, you know, plant and animal species that's obviously very useful in any survival situation. But the whole like polar bear nesting or nursery or whatever you said, like, that's very concerning.

You're on a small island with 350 female mom polar bears. Right. Right. Not counting their cubs. So where are you going to go to not piss anyone off, you know? Yeah, yeah, we're in for some, we're in person stuff for sure. It's scary. You don't want to, I personally would not want to spend a lot of time here. Although it is really interesting and there's so much wildlife, which I think is really cool to learn about because I think a lot of us think of the Arctic and you think of ice. And of course you think of polar bears and penguins and kind of more of colder region species.

But when you learn that there's plants and birds and all these things here, it's like, wow, it's like, wow. It actually is bustling with wildlife. And this island is under UNESCO protections, but Russian officials are currently toying with the idea of using the island to implement military exercises and remove the protective status here. No good. Like right now, as of now, that's... Right now. As of right now. Yikes.

Okay. But after I tell this whole story, I think that everyone might question why anyone would want to spend much time here. but we'll get into that a little bit further. Okay. So Stephenson was planning an expedition to be set out to Rangel Island in 1921 because he believed that it was the perfect Arctic location to be colonized. He wanted people to live here. He thought that because of the abundance of wildlife,

it was the perfect destination to help others want to live in colder regions and prove that it was survivable. So he handpicked four men to conduct the mission to Rangel Island to live and survive off of it for an entire year. Just kind of as like a, hey, look, they can do it, you can do it. Yeah. Okay. He wanted to prove it.

And one of his slogans was he would call it the friendly Arctic. He would say it's just as easy to live in New York or Texas as it is to live on Rangel Island. Well, I feel like that might be a little bit of a stretch. A little bit of a stretch. I see that the heart where his heart was good intentions. He's really the Arctic spigot advocate. But like, chill. It's still the Arctic and it's cold as shit.

It's like maybe people don't want to sit in complete darkness for three months a year and be in negative 50 degree wind chill. And yeah, it's a little rough. But he did pick four men and he picked Alan Rudard Crawford, who was a 21-year-old third-year student at the University of Toronto. He had been studying geology, paleontology, chemistry, and mineralology. and Stephenson had specifically picked him because he wanted a young man who was healthy and fit to join the mission, but he also wanted the expedition to be full of people who were educated in environmental studies because he felt that it was going to be very important in learning and studying the land to prove why people should be able to colonize it.

He also chose Fred Maur, who was a 28-year-old explorer who had actually lived on Rangel Island for several months before on an expedition that Stephenson had led in 1913. This expedition, though, went to very wrong, when the ship that they were on became entrapped in ice flow, and Stephenson actually abandoned the ship and took off on his own mission, leaving his crew behind. Eventually, the ship drifted to Wrangel Island, where Fred Maur and the rest of his crew spent six months stuck there.

Out of the 25 men who were on the ship, only 11 of them survived. But after almost seven years back in civilization, Fred was feeling the itch for an adventure again. So when Stephenson brought him this new idea that he would be able to join, he jumped at the opportunity. He had been missing the Arctic and he felt like he had something to prove. He wanted to prove that he could survive the island again.

And he also wanted, it was almost like a point for him. His friends had died there and he wanted to conquer this island. Okay. Pretty much. So he did want to return. And then there was also Lorne Knight. So Elor Knight was 28 years old. as well, and he had previously been on Arctic expeditions and was actually a part of the expedition

that discovered Stephenson alone in Canada, where he had been surviving where people had thought he was dead. And he gained so much respect for Stephenson after this. For the next several years, he took survival courses from him and obsessed over the idea of exploring the Arctic more. And he fell in love with it, and he actually did end up going on a two-year expedition with Stephenson. And And lastly, there was also 19-year-old Robert Gali. Robert had never explored the Arctic before, but he was very eager to go. And he had met Elor Knight and Stephenson while working with a group that Stephenson had been, he had been going on these tours to say, the Arctic is friendly, inspire people to go.

He had actually been working with that group and had met him through that. So he was very excited to go to the Arctic. And what he lacked in experience, he made up for an enthusiasm. and willingness to learn. He was also a very interesting person because he spoke several languages and he got along with everyone he met. He was very well spoken and he seemed like he would be this happy, inspirational explorer to tell people of this mission after. He was also very fit and healthy and he had no obligations at home that would hold him from going on this expedition. So Stephenson thought that he was the perfect candidate to also go. But from the very beginning,

this expedition was not going as smoothly as planned. Stephenson had created the impression that he would be joining the expedition, which they would soon find out that he actually had no intention of doing. Along with that, he told the four men that he had plenty of money to buy any equipment needed. Before heading to Rome, he advised that they should all buy their supplies beforehand, but privately he approached Fred and told him that he was short on cash and he couldn't fund everything. So Fred actually reached out to his brother for a $1,000 loan to help cover some of the costs that Stephenson couldn't handle. Stephenson promised to pay him back and then he instructed the crew on what they should buy with the money that they had.

He told them to buy two tons of groceries but no canned foods or preserves that were kept in glass. He also advised them to limit their purchases of bacon and butter because those could be replaced by seal and bare fat. He told them not to buy meat because they could hunt and catch their own on the island. They should limit the number of rifles, shotguns, and ammunition that they take. He had originally recommended to the group to take eight tents, but changed his recommendations to four tents instead with two big and two small ones because he stated that they could build their own homes out of driftwood. This seems like it's very heavily relying on a very unpredictable.

Like, how do they know that there's going to be a plethora of opportunity for hunting or that they don't need the extra ammunition or that there's going to be the perfect amount of driftwood for for a year expedition for shelter or whatever you know what i mean like it's just very you're leading you're leaving a lot of stuff up to chance and i'm just not that type of person so i would probably feel very uncomfortable with that like i get limiting what you're taking but at the same time like there are certain things like yeah yeah like limit the amount of of what you say, like fat and what? Like bacon and meat that they wanted to bring because they could hunt their own.

But there's definitely something to be said about not being prepared enough. And they're kind of going off of this. He is an Arctic explorer. He's well known. People respect him. He himself survived for years. So people are kind of just taking his word for it. And he hasn't physically been to Rangel Island himself, but he knows people who have.

and he's just telling them all this, so they're kind of taking it as gospel at this point. And part of why they weren't sending them with all of this stuff is because it was imperative to him that they actually survive while they're out there. If they brought every single thing that they needed, then it wouldn't be proving that you could survive in the Arctic. It would be proving that you could survive in the Arctic if you had everything you needed before you got there. So he wanted them to be hunting and he wanted them to be living off of the resources that

are part of Rangel Island instead of bringing everything in. And because of that, he only wanted them to bring six months worth of food, even though they were going to be there for a year. He wanted them to spend their time trapping and saving furs and skins to bring back with them. So they bought groceries, they purchased guns, ammunition traps, harpoons, fish nuts, fish hooks, photographic supplies so they could photograph their journey, thermometers, flashlights, batteries, lantern, stoves, shovels, ice picks, cooking gear, canvas, and, other assorted hardware. Each man had 12 pairs of socks, 11 pairs of pants, skin mitts, blanket mitts, skin shirts, towels, water boots, canvas boots, belts, handkerchiefs,

undershirts, one pair of drawers and one suit of underwear, which I thought was kind of gross. I'm like, they bring all this and they only bring one pair of underwear. Okay, wait, you said one pair of drawers and what? One suit of underwear, so like a full like onesie. Okay, yeah. It's like, Can we maybe make some more allowance for maybe like I would even settle for two? Like at least an every other day swap, please. At least another one, please. I know guys are a little different, but, you know, I'm the type of person. Have you ever seen that meme?

It's like packing for a three-day vacation better bring 10 pairs of underwear in case I shit my pants. Like every day, I'm like, that's me. Not that I'm doing that. It's like I haven't shipped my pants in years, but just a case. in case it happens every day for this whole trip. I need to have stand by underwear. Yes, a thousand percent. Along with all of that, Robert insisted on bringing 26 boxes of candy, chewing gum.

Okay, like what? Like, okay, stop with the candy and just give me some fresh pair of knickers, please. I do have to say, though, I think that it would be a luxury to be, like, out surviving and be able to eat a little. bit of candy, get some sugar. I think that that would be, especially if you're living off of polar bear meat and you just want a jolly rancher. I just think it's so weird that he's like, I want to prove to everyone that you can survive on Rangel Island off of the land, but we're going to bring 26 boxes of candy. Like, what is that about? I get it for morale and yeah, all that, I'm sure. Yeah, you need some type of luxury there. They also did bring chewing gum and to, and to, you know,

tobacco with them as well because you need your your tobacco. And Stephenson also insisted that the men needed to buy a Yumeak, which is a skin boat that would be used for hunting in the water off of the island. It's essentially this boat that was made of driftwood and covered in seal or walrus skin that spans 25 to 35 feet in length. And this boat would be very important for them to have because it would be light enough to carry, but it would be able to transport two to three tons of weight. So if they had this boat, they could kill a walrus or a seal that was off on the chunks of ice around the island and they could take the boat and go pick it up. Okay. Was why it was so important. Lastly, Stephenson reiterated how important it would be for their survival for the men to hire

Inuit peoples when they arrived from Seattle where they were coming from to know Malasca, that they would be hiring them to hunt for them, to cook and sew and create clothing for them, because the clothing they were bringing was not really sustainable for the whole time and it wasn't warm enough. But if they had these native Inuit people with them, they would know how to do all that for them, essentially. So he said, this is very, very important. You're not going to survive without them. They have the skills you need. You have to hire them before you leave Nome.

Before they did leave for Nome, they did stop in a bookstore in Seattle, and they bought $100 worth of books to help keep them occupied during their isolated stay. And when they did arrive in Nome, they were given more money for additional supplies to buy dogs if there were any money that was left over. The journey to Nome took them four days on a ship called Victoria. Since the beginning of seafaring history, it has been considered good luck to have a cat on your voyage. The chief steward of the Victoria presented the men with a tiny little gray striped furball with pointy ears and big eyes for their own voyage. It was the prettiest kitten of the litter and the men named her Vignton. Victoria or Vic for short. They vowed to keep her as their good luck charm and keep her safe and looked after for the whole journey.

When they arrived to Nome, they discovered that the ship that they had employed to take them to Rangel Island was actually unable to bring them. After several frantic telegrams and letters, they were able to hire the Silver Wave ship for the job and Captain Jack Hammer would take them. That's so funny. I just realized that his name was Captain Jack Hammer as I was reading that. When I wrote it, it didn't like... register me, but now I'm like, Captain Jack Hammer. Somebody did him dirty. Yeah.

However, when Captain Jack Hammer did find out that they were bound for Rangel Island, he actually didn't believe them. He thought it was this big joke that they were just kind of fucking with him. And he couldn't understand why anyone would want to go to such a desolate and icy island that he just assumed that they were joking. And he's like, sure, I'll just take you wherever you're trying to go. I don't care. And he thought so much that they were kidding that when people would ask him where they were going, he would say, I have no idea, but I do know we're not going to Wrinkle Island.

So he thought it was just a big joke. With tons of literal tons of supplies and all of that, he was like not believing them. Well, there had been other expeditions to the Arctic. He just, this island was known to be exceptionally treacherous. and there had already been expeditions where people had died on it. So I think to him, he was just like, sure, I'll take you wherever you're going, but just like let me know when we're heading there, like where you actually want to drop you off. Interesting.

Of course, he did find out shortly after there, they left that they actually were headed there. And he was like, all right, well, I guess we're doing this. But after they did have the ship in place, they did end up purchasing a sled and harness and a team of seven sled dogs. And at this point, it was September, which was pretty late in the season to be making this voyage. And they had actually heard that the ice pack in the ocean was getting a lot thicker, especially up in the northern areas. And they knew that when the ice surrounded the island, it would be almost impossible to get there by boat. But part of why they did get the dogs was because the dogs would be able to take them by sled if the ice pack was thick enough. And they could just use them to get to the island.

Although Stephenson had never made this journey himself, he assured the most. that it was a very simple undertaking and that this would be a very easy trip to get to the island despite the concern of the ice pack. They did find the Yumeak boat that they were supposed to buy was very difficult to find for the price that they wanted to pay and they decided to forego it until they reached their last stop before heading to the island, which would be in Siberia. So their next remaining step while they were there was to hire quote-unquote Eskimos, which is their words, not mine, to join them. They put up flyers and advertisements around town,

hoping that people would be interested. Their hope was to hire hunters and seamstresses and maybe even an entire family that would come out and join them. Ada was walking home after a day of working at a house cleaning job, and she had been struggling for money. Remember, she could barely feed herself, she had lost her son,

and the chief of police, US Marshal ER Jordan, approached her. He told her of the, the expedition that they were hiring a seamstress who spoke English. And Ada had been known to be an excellent seamstress, and she spoke English fluently. He knew that she needed money and told her how the job was willing to pay $50 per month, which was more money than Ada had ever seen in her life. He told her of how it was Stephenson's expedition, which was a name that she recognized because her sister's husband had actually gone on the Canadian Arctic expedition under his name before.

As he told her of the job, she considered it, but decided she ultimately didn't want to go. She couldn't be that far away from her son for an entire year. And although the money was something that she needed desperately, she was terrified of polar bears and she knew that there was a lot up there. She feared that she would go and be eaten and she would never return to her son. Plus, she did not want to be the only Inuit person on the trip. Marshall Jordan told her that she wouldn't be and that they were planning to hire entire families of Inuit people to join the expedition, which made her feel a lot more comfortable, but she was still nervous and she had a lot of reasons that she didn't want to go. But after thinking about it and considering the money, she had a change of heart.

With the amount of money that she would be able to save and get when she returned home from the expedition, she could go get Bennett and bring him to Seattle, where they had the best hospitals to treat and cure tuberculosis. He would have the chance to be a normal. healthy child. And when she realized all this, she decided that it might actually be worth the trip. But before she made her final decision, she went to see a shaman. Ada had been raised to respect and revere shamans, and in her tribe, they wielded great power. She had seen them predict things in the past, and she wanted to speak with one regarding her decision to go. When she arrived, the shaman studied Ada carefully, before telling her that she would sail to the island,

but that there was danger and death ahead for her expedition. She also told her to be watchful of knives and fire. Despite this warning, her hopes for her son Bennett overcame any fears that she had for this trip, and she reluctantly agreed to join the expedition. When people found out she was trying to join the expedition, many people in town came forward saying not to hire her, though. They told the crew that she was a town drunk,

that she had very little morals, and that she slept with many men, and some accused her of being a prostitute and a prostitute on this trip. However, the men did not listen. They had been told that Inuit peoples were dirty and encamped and miserable, a racist issue that was going on in this area. And they found that Ada was not anything that they had been, that Inuit people had been described as. She was clean.

She was put together. She was friendly. She spoke really good English. She could write in really good English. And she had a great reputation of being a seamstress. which was what they were looking for. So despite the townspeople's advice, they hired her anyway and agreed to deposit $50 into her bank account and Nome every month. They then told her that they would set out for Rangel Island on September 9th, 1921, and they gave her money to buy her own supplies

of needles, thimbles, and linen thread. They issued her clothing, which included 11 towels, three hanker shifts and belt, along with clothes that she needed. And along with that, they gave her her favorite item of all, they gave her a paper and pencil to keep notes and write letters. The men believed that they had hired several Inuit families for the trip, but when September 9th arrived and the ship was packed up to leave, the only person who showed up was Ada Blackjack. Oh no. So she arrives and is like, hold on. This is nothing what you said it was going to be. And of course, she's super nervous. And the men like, no, no, like, we want more people to come. And they put out this one last attempt to get more people to join.

And they put out these flyers, they start talking to people, they're running around town, asking for people to join. But they all reported back that their expedition was too dangerous and wasn't worth it to them. And no family was agreeing to go. So now Ada was super nervous and she was ready to back out. She wasn't comfortable being alone with four men on an isolated trip. But the men begged her to still come.

And they promised when they reached Siberia that they would hire more, quote-unquote Eskimos to join the trip to make her feel more comfortable and because they needed it. Still because she needed the money so badly and still thinking of her son Bennett, she now very reluctantly still agreed to join the mission. By September 10th, the Silver Wave ship and their crew reached East Cape Siberia. When they told the Russians of their final destination, the Russians laughed at them and told them that they'd never reached the island. They also made sure to tell them that the island belonged to Russia and that they could travel there, but Siberian patrol may pay them a visit themselves, which is interesting because you have to remember they're going there to try and colonize it

under their own country right now. So they are very careful to not say their intentions that they're just explorers going to visit the island. When they arrived, they also found the skin boat that they were hoping to buy in Siberia was even more expensive than when they were trying to buy it in Alaska. The crew decided that they didn't want to pay the price, and instead they bought a heavy wooden boat. The trip towards Rangel Island was anything but easy. Soon after they left the shores of Siberia, they were trapped inside a storm that rocked the ship.

They were battered by high swells and extreme winds. The storm lasted 44 hours. The entire crew suffered from severe seasickness from the motions of the boat. It was on September 14th when they finally saw Rangel Island for the first time. By the 15th, they were half a month. mile off of the shore when the captain announced he couldn't go any closer as the waves in the shoreline were too dangerous. By 7 p.m., the men landed on the shore on the wooden boat that they had bought. By 11 p.m., they had unloaded their supplies and they returned to the ship to eat dinner

and spend one last night in a warm bed with real pillows and sheets. They each wrote letters to their loved ones for the captain to bring back to Gnome, and in the morning they all set off for the island. As soon as they landed on the island, the four men pulled. put up a British flag. Alan Crawford was a Canadian and a British subject, and they declared the island to be part of the British Empire. Captain Jack Hammer, who had watched what happened from the shore, was not happy, and he felt like he had been tricked into a political maneuver on the behalf of the British Empire on an American ship. When he returned to Nome, he reported immediately what had happened, because he did not want to be accused of being part of it,

and the people there were furious. imagine so because they weren't straight up lied to you, but it was definitely omitted. Like their true intention was definitely omitted on purpose. Yeah, they're like, we're going on this expedition to prove that people can live in the Arctic, but really they find that they're claiming an island to be their own as a country that probably shouldn't have ownership over the island. It's just, yeah, I don't know. I'm sure it rubbed people the wrong way, which I'm sure we'll come into play later. It does, for sure. So they put up this flag and they say, celebrated this victory. They made it. They were happy. They're shouting. They're just very excited.

Ada didn't feel the same. She really didn't care about the flag. And she actually walked away and she walked alone down the beach. And she just watched the ship leave and she cried. She was regretting her decision already. And she wished that she was on that boat back to Nome. But she had promised to be there and she really needed the money. On top of that, she immediately noted that there were a lot of fox and bear prints that were surrounding her. And she was reminded of her extreme fear of polar bears. Okay, this is like, I forget what season it was, I think it was on Vancouver Island of alone. I know I talk about this show all the time. And I forget his name, the contestant's name, but he had served in the military, the U.S. military, and he tapped out on night one because of

the bear. He was so scared of bears. He never saw a bear, but he was so scared of the bears. Like literally got dropped off night one he's like I'm out I can't do this it's like okay dude you've been prepped of where you were going you know what wildlife is here and he just couldn't mentally take it and I'm like I get it sir I understand if I had seen a bear I could totally but if you haven't had any experience with them yet I just I don't know if I would back out that quick but I wouldn't serve I can't say anything I would not survive on alone there's no way but I would like to give myself credit that I would survive more than a night, though. It's just weird how much, like, mentally that can cripple you.

Because, of course, he knew going in, like I just said, where he was going, what animals inhabit the area, the likelihood of him, you know, being around. I think he maybe saw, now that I'm thinking about it, I think he maybe saw tracks. And he was like, oh, shit, I'm really close. They're nearby. And he just, yeah, he's like, I can't do it, you know. And people are. Well, that's how Ada's feeling.

Yeah, she's like, shit. But she can't just tap out on the. GPS satellite phone. Yeah. Yeah, no one's coming in to rescue her, so she's got to just deal with that. And another thing that she noticed immediately when she got there, she was told that Rangel Island was a really small place. And now that she was there, she noticed that it looked massive. The island was 80 miles long and ranged from 20 to 40 miles wide. There were rivers, streams, lagoons and two mountain ranges, one as high as 2,500 feet in elevation. So she went here thinking she's just on this little island and she's in this mountainous Arctic tundra that goes on for

miles and miles and she's upset. She's like, what did I get myself into? I can imagine. Like, am I in over my head here? Like, was this a mistake? But she's doing it for sun. Luckily though, when they did get there, the weather was surprisingly warm. It was just, and I say, warm. It was just above freezing and it was sunny out. And they had actually expected the island to be covered in ice by now, but it wasn't. So that was a welcome surprise. And they spent the next 16 hours setting up camp along this black gravel beach. They set up three tents, one for living and two for supplies. There was plenty of driftwood around so they constructed the frame of a house against a steep hill that was there. They planned when snow arrived, they would use snow blocks to create walls of their shelter. They

a sod roof and the floor was made of split logs. For extra insulation, they pitched two tents inside of the structure. The four men slept in the larger tent and Ada slept in the small one that doubled as a kitchen. Each tent also had a wood-burning stove to help keep them warm. The group was quick to fall into a routine. During the day, they carried out scientific and exploratory work. They would hike across the island studying vegetation, wildlife, and minerals. And in their spare time, they would write in their journals, eat candy, and hang out. Ada liked to sing hymns. Alan loved to tell bad jokes. Lauren would invent funny poems he would tell, and Robert was constantly writing. The men who were originally nervous to only have Ada with them had grown much more confident in her skills.

She was a hard worker. She was consistently cooking and sewing. She was shy and quiet, but they all got along just fine. They saw polar bears, walruses, owls, seagulls, and ravens every single day, but they had not seen any seals up close, and their boat that they had brought couldn't withstand those strong waves to go into the water. They quickly found another problem with their expedition, with no Inuit people except Ada, who had little to no survival experience because she had been put into a missionary school at eight years old. No one there really knew how to work a gun or how to hunt. Hold on. Okay. Wouldn't you think that would be a prerequisite? Well, remember, they were just hoping that they would get some people who lived off the land their whole lives and was part of

their culture to come and just do it for them. Again, why would you want to rely on an unknown variable? I don't know. Like, I get it, but I don't get it. No, it's a mistake. It's a mistake. 100%. Their first attempt to hunt was a walrus who peacefully napped while they shot aimlessly at it, missing every time. Yeah, because they don't know how to work a gun. Or aim, apparently. And frustrating and funny, that would be. You're trying to hunt a walrus and you're missing and he's just like lounging in the sun. He's like, whatever. Not even a moving target.

Not even a moving target. Literally a napping walrus. They did kill their first polar bear one week after arriving, but the ground was so uneven and rocky. It was impossible to sled its carcass back to camp. They ended up cashing most of the meat and saved the skin and were able to bring part of it back. To Ada's horror, as the days continued on, more and more policed. polar bears were seen on the island. There were so many of them that they could be seen in every single direction that she looked. That is utterly terrifying. I mean, it must have been really beautiful,

but mostly absolutely terrifying. Snow first began to fall on September 20th, and it didn't stop after that. They began experiencing real Arctic snowstorms and spent more and more time hold up in their house. After two weeks on Rangel Island, Ada began to really struggle. She was extremely homesick and missing her son, she would spend hours sobbing uncontrollably. Some days she would work diligently and others she would spend sobbing. The men felt bad for her and she was met mostly with kindness from them. However, Fred was usually standoffish to Ada and Ada was afraid of Lorne. He was loud and boisterous and the two of those men referred to her as the woman or the native and never by her name. They didn't have a great respect for her and they were both very standoffish to her.

was kind to her and they played cards together and shared stories. To Ada, Robert seemed like a young boy who was warm and thoughtful. As time went on, Ada began to have an infatuation with Alan. He was polite, handsome, and sophisticated. He was kind to her. She pictured him to be a wonderful father to her son and she soon decided that she loved him. She wasn't afraid of showing her affections and that she one day wanted to be his wife. Oh God. Does he feel the same way? The feelings were not mutual. And Alan was actually mortified by the attention. But despite this, he tried to remain kind to Ada. He tried to let her down easy, but he stayed being kind. It's like, come on, Ada. Let's not do this. We're trapped on this island for a year. And you're making things awkward.

You're making things awkward. I'm just trying to survive out here. But he was trying to be nice because she was also struggling. She's starting to pine after him. But she's also sobbing all the time during the day because she misses her son. She misses her home. She hates being there. It's not easy living, and her work is becoming less consistent. She spent so much of her time sulking and crying that she even moved out of their house and into her own little snow shelter to be alone. Oh, that's so sad. Yeah.

And Alan would try to sweet talk her and convince her to work, but Ada didn't want to. Wait, is Alan the one she likes? Yeah, that she likes, yeah. Okay. But she didn't want to work, and she was starting to become afraid. because she had grown to believe that because she wasn't being helpful anymore because she couldn't control her emotions, she was so upset, she thought because she wasn't useful anymore that the men were going to kill her. So she was trying to avoid them. Now she didn't want to be near them. She was

afraid for her life. And the men were starting to get really frustrated with her. They tried several tactics to try and get her to work. At first, they would try to sweet talk her more and try kindness. and then they would refuse her food and say, if you don't work and do what you promise to do here, we're not going to feed you. Then they went to more extremes, and they actually made her slept outside instead of sleeping in her own tent,

or her own little snow house, and that still wasn't working. So then they showed her Bible stories to try and encourage her. And the Bible stories actually did sometimes work because she was religious, and this lifted her spirits a little bit. Ada had noticed Lauren was using

knives and she couldn't help but remember the shaman's warning to be afraid of knives and that there would be death on the expedition and she convinced herself that Lauren was going to kill her. One day, after the men noticed they hadn't seen Ada in hours, they went to check on her only to find her footprints leading out into the Arctic tundra. They followed them for miles until they came upon her lying in the snow. As they approached, she jumped up quickly and ran away from them and a bottle of liminant, which is similar to ibuprofen, fell out of her pocket. When the men finally caught up to her, she was screaming and said that she had drank the whole bottle of liminant and was waiting to die.

When they got her back home and safe and she was okay from drinking the bottle, they decided that it would be best to set up two camps to cover more hunting ground, but also to separate Ada from Allen. They thought that that might be a contributing factor to why she was being so upset. He was rejecting her advances. She wasn't working well. and now she was really struggling emotionally. So they thought it would be best to separate.

Well, and she has the fear of Lorne. So she has that. And she also has the emotional upheaval with Allen. And then obviously her struggles with being homesick and all of that. So it's like kind of like I feel like she's just kind of running into walls everywhere. So they didn't create the second camp, but Ada continued to barely work. And she even walked the 15 miles to Allen's camp. And when she got there, she began howling and chanting her love for him.

So she told the men, after Alan kept saying, please stop, I'm not interested, she told the men that if Alan wouldn't marry her, that she would settle for one of the other ones, despite that Lauren and Fred were already married. Despite the men asking her to stop and Alan refusing her advances, she continued. She spent her time sobbing. She wouldn't work. She was swooning over Alan or she would just run off into the Arctic. They would have to go off on sled dogs and find her in negative degree temperatures, miles away, and not enough clothing to survive.

She would refuse to come home, and they would have to physically tie her down to the sleds to bring her back. Well, she kept things interesting, didn't she? Yeah, if anything, she's keeping things very interesting. For someone who's petrified of polar bears to just casually walk 15 miles and keep running away by yourself, it's pretty walsy. Yeah, she's throwing all her cares to the wind in here. And people are getting really frustrated with her. And Lorne especially is getting very frustrated. And he tries to deter these behaviors by extreme measures.

He had tried to be kind and understanding the best he could in the beginning. But when that didn't work, he started forcing her to sleep outside. He would tie her to the flagpole for hours. He would refuse to let her eat. And he would tell her that if she started working and doing her duties again, that he would stop doing these things to her. This behavior had not only become a huge burden, but because she was not working, she was forcing the men to make up for it and take her portions

of the duties on top of everything else that they were already doing, which I think that Lawrence what he's doing is pretty extreme. I mean, to tie her up and put her outside, I mean, that's very traumatic. But he did write in his journal, this may all sound funny for the reader, but I can assure him or her that it is not funny for the four of us who have a foolish female howling and refusing to work and eating all of our good grub. Heaven only knows what she is liable to do to herself or one of us, and to be continually watching her gets rather monotonous. I mean, I really can see the frustration.

Of course. This is like an unending series of events. Like, she keeps doing it. It's hard, especially when you're in such a precarious situation. Like, you only have so many rations. You're in a dangerous place. There's not much to, you know, it's just. You are in a service.

survival situation. Right. Like this isn't like a joke. Not that I think she thinks it's a joke. I obviously think the opposite since she's having such a visceral reaction. And how long, have you said how long it's been at this point? This has been going on for a couple weeks. Okay. Yeah. It's just, it's an enough's enough type of thing. And but then again, it's kind of like, do I agree with someone tying her to a flagpole for hours? No. Absolutely not. But what do you do? Like what is the answer? They've tried everything, right? Like talking to her, extreme measures, like what is the solution? Wow, what the men didn't know is that there was actually a name and diagnosis for Ada's really strange behavior that was going on.

What Ada was experiencing is known as Arctic hysteria, which can develop in people who are trapped in cold places with endless days or endless nights. And particularly at this point in time, the polar night had begun and they were in the middle of 60 days. of darkness. Symptoms of Arctic hysteria include easily being frightened, which explains why she was so scared of Lauren and him having a knife, running away, sudden fits of sobbing and then returning to normal, depression, erotic expression, which explains why she's doing all of this to Alan. She's so erotically expressive, but I get it now. She's like, okay, I just, I'll settle for anyone. Like, that is an extreme, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And she's like, how, like, how long? and I can understand why she was acting the way she was for sure.

Yeah. Now that you know that there's a reason behind it, it's like, oh, like, and it makes sense. I mean, you're stuck in cold. You're in these tiny little houses. You don't see light for months. I mean, it could be enough to, like, really strain anyone's mental health, I think. And the weather here was significantly worse than gnome and Ada wasn't used to it. She was craving sunlight.

She was craving warmth. And she had no survival. skills and was never taught how to live in the outdoors. She didn't know that her life was going to be like this when she got here. She had lived in the city for most of her life. She was really struggling, and at this point, she didn't think that any amount of money was worth what she was going through. I mean, she realized that she wasn't herself. She knew that things were not going well. Meanwhile, back in Nome, there had been a huge frenzy since the discovery of this expedition to be for Canada and Britain to colonize the area. Canada, Britain, and the U.S. all had announced that they had no knowledge of this and that

none of them claimed ownership of Rangel Island. The U.S. State Department declared that Rangel Island was property of Russia and due to its icy conditions it had no value for any country, meaning that this elaborate mission that Stephenson had created had no meaning for any country at all. And Ada, Fred, Lauren, Allen, and Robert were risking their lives for no reason. For the next month, Ada continued to struggle, but eventually the Arctic hysteria began to let up and she began to feel more normal again. When the weather became worse since snowstorms were relentless, Lauren threatened to make her sleep outside again unless she actually started working, cooking, and sewing. Ada finally agreed and went back to her duties. The men were still struggling to hunt and hadn't been able to catch anything except for polar bears and a few birds.

They set out traps for foxes, but nothing was ever in their snares. Walruses and seals proved much harder to kill than they had anticipated. And for a while, they were content with bears. There were so many of them around and supplied a large resource of food that they weren't even bothering to store, ration, or save what they had, which was fine for a while. But as the winter progressed, they began to notice less polar bears in the area, and they started to begin to worry about their food sources. By January 1st, 1922, the group had decided to all live together once again, and it was Fred and Allen's last morning at the second camp, having two camps burned twice as much wood and was very taxing on their dogs to travel 15 miles between each other, plus Fred and

Allen weren't having any luck trapping at their camp. So they had collectively as a group decided that they were going to shut down that one. They were all going to live together again to conserve resources. During that morning, they were cozy and warm inside their tent, surrounded by the snow brick house, and were making breakfast. Fred sat close. closer to the tent door, and as they ate, he opened up the flap to reach outside to grab something. As he turned his head, he found himself face to face with a giant white and black snout and two beady eyes staring back at him. A polar bear was staring directly at him. His nose was twitching, smelling the breakfast they had just cooked, and his mouth was salivating as he chomped his teeth together,

preparing for the meal that he was about to have. The bear didn't pay much mind to Fred. Instead, he stuck his head through the snowy door and was sniffing around for food. As Fred gazed upon the creature, he could see the look in his eye. He could recognize the look of a hungry polar bear anywhere. Fred grabbed Allen and ran to the far side of the tent. They had accidentally left firearms outside, not anticipating needing to use them, and had no weapons on them at all. They sat in silence for a moment. The door was too small for the giant bear to fit completely through and could only fit his head. and they hoped when it realized this, it would give up and leave. But that didn't happen.

It stepped away, and then moments later, they felt the brunt force of the bear charging the snowy walls. Their structure was built strong, but they didn't know if it could withstand the charge of a 1,500-pound bear. Fred let out a blood-curdling scream, hoping to scare it away. But it seemed to have the opposite effect. With the noise coming from inside their house, the bear got excited and began aggressively charging the outside. The wall shook around them and snow was cracking and falling. Fred and Allen grabbed whatever they could find near them and began throwing it at the animal. They grabbed firewood, pots and pans, and even dishes that shattered as they hit the floor.

They had good aim. They hit the bear each time, but it didn't care. It was determined for food. Its nose was twitching. It grunted it growled and saliva poured out of his mouth as he took a step closer inside the door. And that's where we will end for part one of this story. Goose bumps. Oh my God. What do you even do for a polar bear? Like, we haven't gone over this. I don't know. Wes from Tooth and Claw, S-O-S. What do you do in a polar bear attack?

Is it like a black bear? Is it like a grizzly? Is it totally different? Right. Like, what's happening? What do we do? I've never had to think about facing a polar bear. Right. Well, obviously, nothing is working as far as deterrence. Throwing shit at it, yelling at it, whatever. Smells food. And I can imagine that they're very accustomed. to people either. What are they cooking? Did it say, just breakfast? Just breakfast. I think there was bacon in there.

Just fucking throw the pan of bacon at it and hopefully it goes away. Like, what do you do? What do you do? Well, we'll find out next week when part two comes out. That, okay. I do enjoy multiple parters, but that cliffhangers. I don't like the cliffhangers because, wait, when are we recording the second part? because I want to wait a week?

This is so funny because usually when we record two parters, we do it all like together and then they just come out separately. But you got to wait until tomorrow to hear the second part. And I say two parters, but this is a three parter. So. I know. Yeah, true. Oh, my God.

Yeah, that's just, I mean, I knew that polar bear was going to come up at some point in the story just because you alluded to it. But I really, I guess, like, yeah, what do you do? I feel like they're more like grizzly bears as far as tactics of surviving an attack or an encounter with one. Yeah. You have some inside knowledge. So you're like, yeah, I'm not going to say shit. But well, I'm really, this is such an interesting story already.

Yeah, it gets even crazier. And this is just like I said at the beginning, this is a two-year survival story. So there are a lot of things that go on. And there's just so many aspects to it that to be able to tell it. and everything that you need to know. It has to be spread out. And like I said at the beginning, there is a book. It is called A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by a Jennifer Nevin or Niven.

It's N-I-V-E-N. It's a really wonderful book. I would definitely recommend getting it. It's been a huge resource for all of these episodes. But of course, as within a book, even though this is a three-parter, there are a lot of things that had to have been left out just because this is a podcast and not an audiobook, but definitely recommend reading it. It's well written and it has a lot of interesting parts to it. Awesome. Well, I'm excited for tomorrow. Everyone else has to wait a week,

suckers. Just kidding. Just kidding. Sorry, that was fresh. But cool. All right. Well, I'm excited to hear more and I guess that's about it for today, right? Yeah, we're all done. How do we end this? Well, we'll see you all next week. We hope you're okay with this cliffhanger and don't yell at us. But in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast.

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