Your Mission! Disasters, mysteries, disappearances, narrow escapes, and tales of survival. Experience some of the world''s biggest catastrophes like never before. In this book, you get to play disaster detective! You have access to the Danger Files, full of critical details about each event. You can dig through eyewitness accounts and fact files,conduct experiements and follow the clues. Can you predict disaster before it happens? Can you figure out what is going wrong and why? Put your detective hat on--your investigation starts now! Chapter One: Ada Blackjack Alone in the Arctic Eyewitness Name: Ada Delutuk Blackjack Born: May 10, 1898 Age: 23 Hometown: Spruce Creek, northwestern Alaska Culture: Ada and her family were Iñupiaq. The Iñupiaq are Indigenous people who have lived in what is now northern Alaska for thousands of years. They continue to practice subsistence fishing, hunting, and gathering--hunting whales, seals, and caribou and gathering berries, eggs, and other resources. Storytelling, sewing, and a strong sense of community are central part of Iñupiaq life.
Nome, Alaska 1921 Ada Delutuk Blackjack''s heart ached as she looked at her son. Coughing and sputtering, five-year-old Bennett took his mother''s hand. He had tuberculosis and needed treatment. He also needed a warm house, filled with good food, and a place to play. But no matter how hard Ada worked as a seamstress and maid, there was never enough money. She had to think of something to save Bennett. She already knew how awful it was to lose someone you love. When Ada was only eight years old, she and her sister had carefully placed their sick father into a dog sled.
The girls tucked animal skins snugly around his feverish body. They needed help. The closest doctor was 30 miles (50 kilometers) away, in Nome, Alaska. The girls hitched the dogs to the sled and pulled out of their remote village. Making the long, cold journey was their dad''s only chance. But halfway through the icy trip, he died. After that, Ada''s mom couldn''t take care of the girls all by herself. She sent them to live with Christian missionaries in Nome.
That meant Ada would not learn any more of her treasured Iñupiaq traditions, such as fishing, hunting, trapping animals, or building shelters out of driftwood and walrus skin. No, the Christian missionaries could not even speak Iñupiaq. They taught her how to read and write in English. Ada learned math and how to pray according to the Bible. She learned housecleaning and cooking. At least she already knew the Iñupiaq way of sewing--and special techniques for making the seams waterproof to keep out ice and snow. Grasping a needle and pulling it through the pelts, Ada spent hours carefully sewing animal skins together to make boots, fur coats, and fur pants. And that''s what she was doing for work as a grown-up, as a mom.
But it wasn''t enough. Ada had to make the difficult decision to place Bennett in an orphanage. The orphanage would give Bennett the medical care he needed. They would give him a place to live, with food. And if Ada could find a better-paying job, she could get him back. They could live together again. Danger Clue! Tuberculosis, also known as TB, spreads through airborne germs from person to person as people cough, sneeze, sing, or even just talk. These germs can survive for hours.
Symptoms include fatigue, weight loss, night sweats, and fever. The illness can affect the lungs, brain, kidneys, and other parts of the body. Some people contract TB without immediately getting sick. That''s called latent tuberculosis. In some cases, the disease lingers in the body for years, becoming active later. Walking home from work one night, Ada felt tired all the way to her bones. The police chief spotted her. He liked her and knew how much she needed a good-paying job to care for her son.
He''d heard about a job that could help Ada get Bennett back! The police chief called out to Ada. The two walked together as he filled her in on the job. The chief explained that four Arctic explorers needed an Iñupiaq seamstress who could speak English. The job was to make clothing for the explorers out of fur and animal skin to keep them warm. The conditions wouldn''t be easy, but it paid fifty bucks a month! That was a life-changing amount of money. Hope began to grow in Ada''s chest. Ada soon learned that the four men were headed to the Far North on an Arctic expedition. It would mean an entire year away.
A ship would drop them off at their new Arctic home. Life there would be rugged, sheltering in tents and snow houses built on the ice. But Ada wouldn''t have to worry about any of that. The men would take care of building shelters, hunting, chopping wood, and getting everything all set up. All she had to do was sew, and that was an important job--after all, they would all need warm clothes made of animal fur and sealskin to survive Arctic temperatures. And she was so talented at that already. She would sew for them until the next summer. That''s when a ship would arrive to bring fresh supplies to the explorers who would remain on the island for another year.
They would also bring a replacement for Ada. That meant she would be free to board the ship and return home--to Bennett. Ada knew that if she took the job, she would miss Bennett terribly. Visiting him brought her so much joy. But Ada also knew this was her only chance to make a better life for her son. And with all the money she would earn with this work, she''d be able to get him out of the orphanage and make a life together! She jumped at the chance.