My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 271 - 4 Hours of Sacred Pausing

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

On this week’s episode, Karen and Georgia cover Sophie Scholl & the White Rose youth resistance, and the survival story of Ada Blackjack. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. It's our one-year bananaversary. It's been one year of bananas. That's all the strange news you can handle with fun stories and great guests, like Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark from a little unknown podcast called My Favorite Murder on Exactly Right. So if you like strange stuff and good friends having a fun time, listen to Bananas. Check out the Bananas Podcast. It's the Bananaversary one-year birthday party episode. It's the Bananaversary.

Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And here we go. In week 3,000 of the quarantine. We're right near the end. We're right coming right up on the edge like Thelma and Louise just going over the end. You had a moment with Brad Pitt. It was excellent. Oh, he really was. I really, I remember him entering screen when we saw that movie in the theater and going like, what? I'm sorry. Excuse me? Legend of the Falls? That's what he was into, right? He was young. What's up? He was in Legend of the Falls too, right? He was later, yeah. Gorgeous child. I mean a gifted face. Absolutely. A gifted faced man. Yeah. Which is all you want in your youth.

My peak Brad Pitt has to be 12 Monkeys, which I just think is one of the best, still best movies. It's pretty, that's a good watch. Yeah. That's a great rewatch deep cut. I feel like it's not given enough hurrah. That and then also I love fucking End of the World movies, but Children of Men. Yes. What's his name? That's so sexy. Clive Owen. He's just like seat down by the world. I mean, actually, you know what? I'm putting that on my list because I was scraping my brain. It feels like we recorded the last episode yesterday. So I was like, and we talked for so long on the top of that one that I was like, literally I emptied the well of anything I'm doing in my life. I feel like when we have long talks on one episode, it's guaranteed that the

next one will be 20 minutes usually because we just blurred everything in our entire lives and brains out and then are left panting on the shores of podcasting. But I was going to say the, I have a running list of movies that if I'm laying on the couch and I'm not going to watch a Swedish procedural, I'm like, okay, but I do have this very solid list, which is a list from our staff, meaning it's a list from this show. It's a list from kind of everything where it's just like, oh, that's right. And Children of Men goes right on that list because that thing is a tour de force. I remember making my dad watch it and I got so excited about that continuous shot where they drive by and then the thing that's on fire goes behind. And that whole

thing is almost like a POV of if you're there too. And I kind of explained to my dad how cool that was and how hard it was to do. And he was like, all right, I get it. You're in the movies. I was just like, but look dad, dad, look at this thing. There's no cuts. There's no cuts. I will say too that speaking of getting recommendations from this podcast, from the advertisement for Mayor Easttown was really good. The first episode, of course it is. It's Kate Winslet, but also Guy Pearce. No, Guy Fieri. It's Guy Fieri. He's the love interest of Kate Winslet. Finally, there's a very sexy, sexy scene. No, the one from Hollywood. Guy Pearce. Guy Pearce. Yeah. You were right. Who's like,

oh, he's one of those men that you're like, how do you get hotter? The older you get, the gruff, new and gruff man. Because again, gifted face. Gifted face. Gifted actor. But yes, he has those like, he has a perfect nose, eye, cheekbones. Yeah. I guess that's the mask area. Yeah. It doesn't matter with men what happens to the mask area. It does. It's annoying. Scrape it up and women will like you more. However. With women. Yeah. No, no. Kate Winslet looks incredible though, too. I think there is a similar age going on with them and they're both just like delivering the hotness. But Kate Winslet has always looked like a haunted portrait of a Victorian widow or something. Yes. She is from Heavenly Creatures. Yes. Also, Melanie Linsky was the

co-star and equally beautiful. Kate Winslet, the more she went on, they just kept going, oh, cast her in like a period piece. Yeah. Look at what she looks like in an Empire waistdress. Like insane. Like hoist those fucking dits as high as they'll go. Those milky, beautiful breasts. Excuse me. Wow. Jesus. Didn't know I was into that, but apparently I am. But hey, if merit gets a going for you, so be it. It does. And speaking of what you're speaking of, can I tell you a book I'm reading that halfway through I cracked the fuck up. It takes place in the late 1800s. It's a true story, but it's like fictionalized in a really, really great way. It feels like fiction. And it's about this woman who's the black, a black widow. She kills everyone. She comes over from

Sweden. And so does her sister. No, don't say it. What? I read this. I know. So halfway through, she kills her second husband and then marries a guy whose last name is Gunnice Guinness. And I realized wait, her first name is Bell. It's fucking bell Guinness of triflers need not apply. I didn't know that till halfway fricking through. I don't want to accuse you of anything. Please do. But I have an idea that you might be doing to me right now what I did to you with the other book that I read and then you were like, Hollywood Park. Can I get a witness? Is it am I talking into a black hole? What's happening? But no, I read that book and I'm pretty sure I recommended it, but I might not. It's called in the Garden of Spite by Camilla

Bruce. And it is Camilla Riveting. Fucking high five. Amazing. I knew the story. I did the story. And I still read it going. What's going on? And I was like, Hey, she burned down her own candy store. Burn everything to the ground. Burned everything to the ground. Everything. And then so I don't know if it's part of the story, but it goes from chapter to chapter from her from bell to her poor sister who doesn't want to believe any of it. So like that's what this brings the story around. And you're just like, dude, your sister's a monster. But it's also tells of how she became that way, which I don't know if that's fictionalized as well, but it's also like heartbreaking. It's it's backstory that I wonder, I don't think you could put in that much detail backstory and

have it be. I can't I can't imagine, but but also I think it's so beautifully lays out what it would be like to be related to a sociopath. Totally. Because it's the kind of thing where she just keeps going. No, she wouldn't. I can't. There's no way. There's no way. And at a time period, when death was kind of a regular thing with children and people died very young, it wasn't like totally out of the ordinary. But then there's so many actions that the sister's doing. That's the so far. Yeah. Yeah. It's really intense. And the details, it was like all the details I wanted around that story that just you can't get from those historical stories. Yeah, I can't put it down in the Garden of Death. In the Garden of Spite. In the Garden of Spite. Camilla Bruce.

Excellent. Are you ready for the brag? I'm going to drop on you then. I don't have anything else. I'm currently reading Moby Dick. What? The Canon. But I'm doing it to be trendy. But I'm reading the Cliffs Notes version. It was like, it was like something people started talking about on social media. And then I was like, I should read that. I hear like, as people talk all the time about what beautiful writing is, every once in a while, there's someone in my Twitter feed that likes to retweet, there's a Moby Dick bot that just will, it'll just tweet like a phrase or a sentence from the book. Oh. And there's amazing, it'll come up and you're just like, whoa, that's awesome. Yeah. So then I was

like, well, I should just read this. And it actually is at a great, amazing read. Okay. Because I don't like reading stuff out of guilt or out of like, oh, shit, I got to read this. No, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Like homework reading. Yeah. I won't do it. Speaking of homework reading. This is just going right on to the next and you just pick up a history book. Look at this no Western civ instead of like writing them down. I just brought all my books into the second bedroom with me because I was like, fuck it. This one's called it's a workbook that my therapist suggested called conquer your critical inner voice. Wow. How's it going in that book? Well, I haven't cracked it yet. Look, my inner voice just keeps telling me you can't do it. You can't do it.

It won't work on you. Get in there. See what happens. You know, that's Oh, yeah. I do actually though, wait, speaking of this, that just made me think of because I so I had some shelves built no bra. Congratulations. I think I've bragged about this though on that show before. Oh, it's important. It's important. It's important to celebrate your wins. Right. And but I don't have any books in the shelves, right? Because I have a bunch of books that I moved when I moved and then a bunch of them got moldy because the air conditioning leaked. Oh, right. I lost a bunch of books in them in the move heartbreaking. So I told my friend Paige that I like lost a bunch of books. She's like, okay, well, I'm going to send you a couple starters. She's been sending me

like beautiful coffee table books. Oh my god. It like every day I'll get like a new thing from a different independent bookstore in a different city. And then it's just like a Vivian Meyer coffee table book or I mean, she sent me a but I was like, this is the greatest gift. Yes. They're like beautiful. They look amazing on the shelf. It makes you look worldly area diet and like well read. I haven't opened any of them. I don't know what they're really about. There's a lot of like architecture books where I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know architecture and Moby Dick motherfucker. Because what I can read. But I just at one point I go and the cool thing is I can read all of them and then she just started laughing because I was like purely I want them to fill up these

shelves in a very like, yeah, stylish way as a chachki obsessed person. I understand. Yeah. Yeah. You just don't want empty shelves. No, it looks that looks like a minimalism. So fuck it to hell. So one of the books she so she that got me started this really nice bunch of books. Thanks Paige. But then I was like, Oh, it was her ideas were making me think of Oh, I need this. I need this. And one of the books is a book by the cartoonist Linda Berry on what it is. You told me about that. It's basically Linda Berry's like creative writing book. And if there's anyone out there who is interested in writing and getting into writing and kind of fake trying to figure out what you want to write or how you want to write, if get the book what it is by Linda

Berry, and it will help you figure all those questions out and more. It's like, it's also kind of like a workbook where there's she talks about different things and her different theories. And then basically is like, now do this now make a list of these 10 childhood memories that involve blank. She's the one that did the thing of you can't remember your phone number two phone numbers ago, but you can remember your first phone number from your first house. You definitely suggested that to me when we were writing our first book and I was having an existential crisis and I definitely picked it up and read half of it, which is reflective and in my chapters in our book. But it was really helpful. It's really beautiful. It's well and just those the things she has you

do actually create nuggets of things you can then use for writing. They're like little worlds that bloom because you like remember all that. Yeah, writing prompts. I love those. Right. Very. It's very cool. Good. This is our lit episode. Can anyone handle it? Oh, I'm off Instagram for the week. I shook Vince's hand and agreed that I wouldn't be on it, but I will post on the animals page. I have now have two animal pet Instagram accounts. So you're on Instagram. I'm off. How's it going? Comments and scrolling and any of that stuff. It's great. I replaced the Instagram app button on my phone with like a printer or something. And the amount of times I've absent mindedly scrolled and hit open the printer is like really taught me something about

my automatic, you know, lizard brain need for stimulation. And it's dopamine hits. Dopamine hits. Dopamine hits. That's what we want. Yeah. So that's the setup. I highly recommend it everyone. And it's, it's, we'll see how it goes. I can't imagine it's not going to be positive. How many days has it been? It was three o'clock on sat. It was three. It was a Saturday afternoon at three o'clock and today's Tuesday afternoon. So a couple days. And how much longer you have to go till Saturday? Yeah, go till Saturday. Maybe I'll go longer. People have gone longer, I guess and thrived. They have. Well, Chrissy Teigen made it 24 days. You can do this. I'm no Chrissy Teigen, but I mean, but look, I think taking breaks from a thing that is not real

and does not exist in reality is a very good idea to then spend time in reality. I think like find the dopamine hits in reality, I guess is the goal. That's a good point. And I'm also like, when I have the urge to take a picture or video of something, usually my pets, I think, why don't you just enjoy it as is right now without because I do it and I have all these expectations of like, do something cute, do that thing you just did and they never do what they just did before I hit the camera. And then I saw I miss it completely. I think a lot of people probably with kids have the same issue where it's like, just remember this and how lovely it is. Yeah. And then you're not always going, what will so and so think of it? It's just like,

yeah, you have your just kind of in life, which I think now seems social media makes it seem like that's a little dimmer than if everybody else was consuming it. Definitely. What else of you? How are you? Well, you know what I was going to tell you about was, so I think I've told you this already, but my Canadian friend, Jacob Tierney, who's from later Kenny, he and I were for a little while doing, we would do movie nights. Oh, and the recurring theme of the movie night was Gerard Butler. The French actor? No, that's Gerard Dipper do. Also a great actor. Gerard Butler. You know him. So, you know, hit, I think we started at 300, where I was like, can we just watch 300? I think it helps people. And he was like, of course,

the most recent one. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I really was scraping my brain for that legit recommendation. But I was like, what is the most? What's the movie you've watched recently that you genuinely enjoyed? I already recommended Minari. So like if you haven't seen Minari, I'll re recommend it because clearly, I don't lie and the Oscars don't lie. It's a beautiful, beautiful, warm, lovely film. But also, you could say a lot of the same things that you might say about the beautiful film Minari, about Gerard Butler's newest hit film Greenland. Because it is a movie about the world ending. And there's something about that these days, like you were saying before, it's so satisfying. Like it's emergency, there's bad shit going on. And it's

a survival situation. But also entertaining. When you have one single focus, and that's to survive the awfulness that has happened because of decades of the shit that led up to it, I feel so like satisfied with those kinds of movies, you know, survival. It's good. I would recommend, although it's going to cost you 20 bucks, which is for people going to the movies for $5 or two people going to the movies for $10, or you going for 20. Well, what if three people in a child go? That's $17.50. A matinee. You're still getting a bargain. It's a bargain. Okay. Thank you. Because I wasn't going to do it until you broke that down and you're right.

Do you have anything else? Are we scraped clean? I really don't. I've actually also, I haven't been on Twitter in a while just because it's all very bad. Yeah. That's good. Look at us thriving. The anti-social media plan, I think, is good. It's good to take breaks and practice taking breaks. Definitely. I'm all for it. Sacred pause. I don't think that's what my therapist means when she tells me about that, but I think that's what we should call it maybe. Hold on. Let me look that up real quick. It's, oh, it's Tara Brock's thing. And it's a pause in the midst of meditation to let go of thoughts and reawaken our attention to the breath, to discontinue whatever we're doing,

thinking, talking, walking, writing, planning, blah, blah, blah, worrying, and become whole-heartedly present, attentive, often physically still. That's what we're doing. It's up to Tara Brock. You mean right now? No. I mean, with social media. It's like, I mean, we can, we can, but it's not great podcasting. We can. And I want to argue. I want to reward you for doing that. But should we do exactly right corner and very exciting news that we have to announce? Yeah. Very exciting news second as a build-up? Yes. Great. So this week, there are lots of great stuff happening on the network, the exactly right network, by the way. But just some of the, some of the great ones are

SVU fan worship podcast entitled That's Messed Up. This is the 20th episode this week. It went up on Tuesday, 420. And in celebration, Karen Lisa are joined by none other than Bob Saget, because he was in season eight of SVU. And he's there this week. It's just the bookings. They're killing it. The bookings are so good. Bob frickin' Saget. And as a, as a fan of that show, because I have watched, I believe I've watched every single one of them at least twice. Pretty sure. You mean full house? Yes. Including the, the current one. Oh, wow. I remember Nora going through a full house phase and me just being like, let me know when you're done. I don't want you to talk to me about this anymore. Do you know that I'm actually friends with Jodi Sweeten on Instagram, who's a

murderer? No, she played Stephanie Tanner, the often suffering middle child, but she was my age. And so all her choreographed jazz dancing that she did on the show, I was like, obsessed with. And now she like reached out and she's a murderer, you know, and we're friends on Instagram, which I just little Georgia would fucking lose her mind. Yeah. Yeah. Invite little Georgia in for some sacred pauses and some, and some hands and some stepball changes. Bananas are fucking hilarious, funny news podcast hosted by Kurt and Scotty is celebrating their one year anniversary by having guests Karen and Georgia on none other than me and Karen. That was the most fun. It was so fun that I had a migraine when we started and by the end of the

episode, I had laughed it away. It was just incredible. And I just loved those boys and their fans and podcast. So check out Bananas. It's amazing that it's been a year. It went really fast and it feels to me like they've always had that podcast and they've always been doing it. Absolutely. Like they're just such naturals. Definitely. It's really cool. Oh, and do you need to ride this week? Chris Fairbanks and I have the legendary comedian Janelle James, who is truly the funniest, just a joy to talk to. It's just a fun one. I mean, it's, I feel weird plugging my own show, but I love Janelle so much and it was just, we all were just laughing our asses off the entire time. It was really fun. Can I tell you a quick side,

exactly right family side story? Vince has been golfing a lot with friends and he just golfed with Chris Fairbanks the other day, which has, Chris talked about it on our show. And then Murder Squad has a story about how in 2017, three women were found dead within a three block radius in Lumbertown, North Carolina. And so there's all these ties to drug addiction and the deaths are undetermined. Two more women disappeared and so Paul and Billy look into whether the same offender could be responsible for all of them. So it's incredible work they're doing. Please follow and check out the Murder Squad, which you're probably already doing. But we just love that and those guys. Wow. Three block radius. That's not good. Nope.

That's not good. Nope. Oh yeah. And then I just was going to say on, I said no gifts this week. Bridger has Kola Skola, the great and friend of the family, Kola Skola. It's just such a hilarious episode. They have the funniest conversation and just delightful, like funny, like witty banter. You know, I feel like that's one thing in the quarantine we've all lost out on. Just kind of like superficial, almost like between strangers or light acquaintances banter. Nothing deep. And it's just a great one. Those two are just comedy geniuses. So I'm, they are quite a combination, but they're quite a combination. It's great. It's a great episode. Cool. All right. That's our biz. Also, real quick, in the My Favorite Murder Store, we have

a bunch of toxic masculinity, runes the party again, shirts and tank tops, classic and brand new styles. And the spring cleaning clearance sale is on now and first access goes to the fan cult members. So check that out before everything sells out. And now the big announcement that we've been waiting for truly months and months to tell you guys about it's going to be out of the blue. We haven't even hinted about this one. We've kept it under wraps. That's right. Everyone knows the great Nick Terry who's been making MFM animated cartoons of the, of the little clips of the episodes for us voluntarily on his own time out of the goodness of his heart. He's been making listeners and us laugh. And he's been making my favorite murder

meme dreams come true and just making these characters out of the, just the words we say that just are so delightful. And I'm sure you guys have seen them all, but guess what? We are, we have, we are officially partnered with Nick Terry. And now the exactly right network has their own YouTube channel where all 23 of Nick Terry's MFM animated episodes are going to live. Plus, plus to entice you guys over to please subscribe. A brand new episode, never before seen episode of MFM animated is going up today, Thursday, April 22nd. And it's called Snake Den. And we've seen it and are overjoyed. We can't wait for you guys to see this. It's just a whole new ballgame with Nick Terry at bat.

And we're so excited to be in the outfield catching those homeruns. That doesn't, that's not how. The least baseball, a group of people doing baseball stuff and going straight to the top. But you're right in the way that I don't, I don't think I've seen one that I didn't adore and laugh so hard at. And I've talked about this where we, I have caught myself showing people MFM animated, completely realizing what a lunatic like monster diva I look like of like, look at my thing. But it's not, it's like, how did he do that? We just love him. You don't realize that it's not our words. It's the, it's the jokes and the like visuals that he puts in that make it what they are. And so fucking funny and beautiful and these characters he does.

I mean, yeah. He's so talented. He's so talented and we're together going to put out a bunch of new merch and it's just going to be a really cool addition to the MFM family and exactly right. So welcome. Yes. So welcome, Nick Terry. We are so glad to have you and we adore you. Yes. Thank you for all your art. And there's going to be a brand new one every month from now on. So please subscribe to the YouTube page. It's a youtube.com slash exactly right media. Yeah. And we're happy to be on YouTube as well, helping a lot of, hoping a lot of content will be added to that in the coming time. Looking for a better cooking routine with meal planning, shopping and prepping handled. Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy

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free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha and I'm Brooke and we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast Even The Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a diva will tell you how she hid her true self to

make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even The Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay, well, I'm really excited to tell the story this week of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose anti Nazi youth movement. So I got information from Holocaust resistance, the White Rose, a lesson in dissonant by Jacob G. Hornberger, an article called Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Tonya B. Spitzer, a website called a mighty girl by just said Catherine, I couldn't find her last name, the website Holocaust research project.org, an article by Aaron Blackmore and an article by Guido Fechtler.

And also my research was done this week by my new researcher, Hailey Gray. So thank you so much. Okay, in 1933, as we all know, Adolf Hitler in the Nazi regime took control of Germany and immediately started to take away freedoms. That included controlling young people in order to make sure that they believed in the Nazi ideology so that they could carry it on through generations. And in schools, textbook had to be approved by the Nazis. And a lot of the teachers were actually active members of the Nazi of Nazi organizations. So they kept an eye on the goings on of parents through their students by asking the kids like innocent, seeming questions about their parents and their actions, while actually then alerting authorities to any perceived

infractions. And I think they got rewarded for that. So any little thing that they saw going wrong, they would, you know, tell. Any teacher who wasn't down with the Nazis or refused to incriminate parents via their students, or teach the Nazi approved curriculum were fired or sent away to detention camps. The Nazis attempted to teach German children that Arians quote Arians were superior to Jews, disabled people, people of color, as well as Roman Gypsies, which my family were Roman Gypsies and Jews. So that was rough. Arian kids were even encouraged by their teachers to bully Jewish students. Can you imagine fucking adults saying go bully children? It's just absurd and inhumane. One Nazi textbook used for very young children was called Trust No Fox

on his green heath and no Jew on his oath. And it attempted to spread the word that Jewish people would murder Germans if given the chance. Arian kids age 10 to 17 were also called Jewish were also encouraged to join the Hitler Youth or for girls, it was the League of German Girls. And all other youth groups and organizations were banned. The boys are trained to be soldiers and the girls are trained to be mothers and housewives. And both are trained to be loyal to Hitler. But not every young person joins the Nazi approved youth groups. Some join anti Nazi groups like the idol wise pirates who are comprised mostly of young workers and teenagers. And the groups breads Nazi slogans, they hide deserters, they assault Nazis. And in 1944, later, they even

killed the chief of the secret police, which then unfortunately leads to 12 members being publicly hanged. Another anti Nazi youth group is the swing kids. They form after the Nazis start banning swing music. You know, jazz had been popular in the 20s in Germany and the social political atmosphere had grown darker in the 30s. So the new widely popular form of jazz swing music made its way across the Atlantic. But soon the Nazis, you know, realized that their music had black roots, it's perceived Jewishness and lack of restraint and the dance moves even began to raise alarms with the government. So technically, the movement wasn't a political one, the swing kids, aside from not wanting to be controlled or become Nazis themselves, the swing kids did raise

red flags with Nazi authorities as they tended to welcome Jewish teenagers into their groups and stand up for them. And the Nazis started rolling out anti jazz propaganda and rules. And then certain artists records are banned. And Germans aren't allowed to listen to foreign radio stations. But another much more political and anti Nazi resistance group that formed was called the white rose. And one of the key members was named Sophie Scholl. So let me tell you about her. Sophia Magdalena Scholl was born in May of 1921 to an upper middle class family in the south of Germany. When she was 10 years old, she and her family moved to a town called Ohm, where her father worked as a state auditor and tax consultant and was active in politics. After the Nazis came to

power in January 1933, Sophie, along with her four siblings, enthusiastically joined the national socialist youth organization. And so they were all into it despite their parents open disdain for the Nazi movement, which they viewed as evil and un-Christian. Meanwhile, by 1936, any alternative youth group is banned. And then as a teenager, so people leave in the ideals of the movement. And anyways, one's interested specifically on the focus of nature and communal experiences. But also, as did the majority of Aryan Germans, the Scholl siblings believe that Adolf Hitler was leading Germany and the German people back to greatness from, you know, their trouncing in World War One. Sophie joined the League of German Girls and she quickly rose in their ranks. But her parents,

especially her father, became even more critical of the Nazi party. He viewed the developments in Germany with horror and though not the norm of the time, because any vocal criticism was dangerous, Robert, the father discussed his views with his kids, you know, in their house and told them about the evils of fascism. And he said, he said to have told them, quote, all I want for you is to walk straight and free through life, even when it's hard. In 1937, several of Sophie's siblings were arrested for being members of a non Nazi youth group. And this was a turning point for Sophie's life and ideals. And that kind of began the process that eventually would turn her from a proud supporter of the Nazis to an active resistance fighter. On September 1, 1939,

Hitler invades Poland and then two days later, France and Britain declare war on Germany. Sophie's older brothers and her boyfriend were forced to fight on the front lines. And then so after graduating high school in the spring of 1940, she started an apprenticeship to become a kindergarten teacher. She wanted to study biology and philosophy eventually, but quickly her dreams were quashed because in 1941, a policy dictated that she had to serve six months of auxiliary war service. So she's a free thinker, she's a nature lover, and she hates being in the war service. So she finds solace in her own spirituality led by the writings of theologian Augustine of Hippo, and writing down her own thoughts as her doubts about the regime continue to grow.

In May 1942, she moves to Munich to start studying biology and philosophy. And there, her older brother, Hans, is now a medical student at the same university. And he had already begun to actively question the system, along with some of his friends, including Christoph Probst, Alexander Chemoral, Willie Graf, and their psychology and philosophy professor, Kurt Huber. So while serving on the Eastern Front, the group of boys had learned firsthand about the crimes committed in Poland and Russia. And they had witnessed the violence with their own eyes, including witnessing the murder of Jewish civilians by SS troops and the mass graves they were buried in. And that same year, Sophie's father was sent to prison after he was overheard calling Hitler,

quote, the scourge of humanity. So knowing that open dissent wasn't an option. In June 1942, they began printing and distributing an anonymous leaflet in an around Munich called the White Rose. And they don't know for sure, but it might be based on the fact that there was a flower on the front of the leaflet. It called upon their fellow students and the German public to act against the Nazi regime, which is dangerous in and of itself and just completely insane. The essays inside it said that it was time for Germans to rise up and resist the tyranny of their own government. And at the bottom of the essay, they asked that the public make as many copies of the leaflet as possible and distribute them. And their paper and ink were rationed at

the time. So even asking German public to do that was just an act of defiance in itself. It was the first time that internal dissent against the Nazi regime had surfaced in Germany. So not wanting to stay passive anymore and finding out about her brother's involvement in the movement, Sophie joins. So at first, they only sent pamphlets via mail. They would get random addresses through the phone book and just send out thousands. And they also sent them to professors, booksellers and authors. The members of the White Rose advocated nonviolent resistance. However, they advocated sabotage of Hitler's war machine and gave clear advice in their pamphlets on how to take steps to do so. So yeah, one quote is sabotage in armament plants and war industries,

sabotage at all gatherings, rallies, public ceremonies and organizations of the National Socialist Party. More essays were written and leaflets covertly distributed. Also, they started to use graffiti to spread their word and it started appearing on the streets and buildings all over Munich, reading down with Hitler, Hitler, the mass murderer and freedom. So as a woman, Sophie was able to play a key role in the distribution of pamphlets because as a female, she was less likely to be randomly stopped and searched by the SS than her male members of the White Rose, which is really cool and brave. In the end, the group were able to distribute thousands of leaflets, reaching households all over Germany. And despite the

Gestapo's best efforts, it was unable to catch the perpetrators and they had got out six pamphlets by the time their luck ran out. So on February 18, 1943, as Sophie and Hans were distributing pamphlets at the University of Munich campus, they had covertly distributed most of the flyers, they only had a small stack left. And they went to the main atrium and climbed the staircase to the top floor. And there, famously, Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets into the air. However, the drop was seen by a janitor. He happened to be a staunch supporter of the Nazis and Hans and Sophie were immediately arrested by the Gestapo. The draft for the seventh pamphlet was still in Hans' bag, and it had Christopher Prope's name on it. So he was arrested that same

day. So on February 22, just four days after their arrest, their trial began. No witnesses were called, none of the defendants were permitted to give testimony to defend their actions. However, they freely admitted to everything. But they also attempted to take responsibility fully in order to protect fellow members of the group. So the only statement on record belongs to Sophie, who regarding the group's actions declared in court, quote, somebody after all had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others, they just don't dare express themselves as we did. In the middle of the trial, their father Robert Scholl forced his way into the courtroom, saying that he was there to defend his children. He was seized, he was forcibly

removed. And but the entire courtroom heard him shout quote, one day there will be another kind of justice. One day they will go down in history. The judge declared the three defendants guilty of treason, obviously it was bullshit trial, and that they would be sentenced to death by guillotine, which is to take place immediately that same day. The guards allowed Hans and Sophie to have one last visit with their parents, according to writer Richard Hanser, who was a psychological warfare specialist in Europe during World War Two. Sophie told her parents, quote, what we did will cause waves. Really quick, can I tell you she's 21 years old this time? Whoa, I know. So it's hard to listen to that. It's like, I'm not riffing with you or whatever. Because this, first of all, this parallels

the movie JoJo Rabbit so much that I almost feel like Taika Waititi or whoever I think he wrote it must have known this story. Absolutely. Must have. Yeah. Because it's so similar. But the idea that you could do anything when the Nazi regime is in power. I mean, it was so out of control. It's just like the fact that they did anything is horrifyingly scary. Yeah. Like having that piece of paper in your hand, even if you didn't weren't the one that printed it or wrote it. Definitely. So in Munich's Stadlheim prison, both Hans Scholl and Christian Propst were beheaded and it said right before his death, Hans shouted long live freedom. One observer described that Sophie walked to her death, quote, without turning a hair without flinching. And then they said

that her expression was described as, quote, clear and her smile was fresh and enforced with something in it that her parents read as triumph. And at just 21 years old, Sophie Scholl was then beheaded. After their execution, the Gestapo tracked down and tried and executed other members of White Rose, including Alex Schmurl, who was 25, Willie Graf, who was 25, Kurt Huber, the teacher, who was 49, and other students who participated were either executed or sent to concentration camps. Can you imagine being so afraid of 20 year olds that you have to send them away or behead them? It's just said so much more about them than the... It's what they were doing to every single person except for literally like the person that was standing next to them wearing the SS

uniform. It's what they did to everybody. It's insane. So after their deaths, a copy of the sixth pamphlet was smuggled out of Germany and delivered to the Allies. It was retitled the manifesto of the students of Munich and Allied forces dropped millions of copies. And they spread their words. Do you know when? What year? It's just as after they were put to death and that was done in 1943. So in the war ended in 45, so somewhere between there. After the war, verdicts like those against Scholl, the Scholls were overturned and Germany now considers the White Rose members to be heroes. And in fact, today there's a square at the University of Munich that is named after Hans and Sophie Scholl. And I know and there's streets, squares and schools all over Germany

named in honor of the members of the White Rose. In total, there were only six leaflets ever published and distributed by Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends. Four were under the title the White Rose and two were titled leaflets of the resistance. Prison officials later remarked on Sophie's courage as she walked to her execution. It said her last words were, quote, such a fine sunny day and I have to go. But what does my death matter if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action. And that is the story of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose. Wow. And there's a couple of books that you can pick up about it. And you know, there's many documentaries and books. There's one called the White Rose, there's one

called a noble treason and one called an honorable defeat. There's so much more information to be had about resistance groups and just so much to learn from them. Yeah, it makes me makes me proud. Yeah, it should. It's incredible. And also it's a beautiful symbol of how small gestures actually can be very big. Yeah. And especially in a situation like that. Yeah. And bravery matters, bravery matters and anyone can do these little gestures. Are you ready for a survival story? Always and forever. Right. This is a story that actually Jay found for me on the website Atlas Obscura, which I love and so good. We use lots on this show because they don't only do lists of amazing, interesting places that you can go to around the

world. But there's often very cool stories attached to them. And so this was one of them. And it was it was on their website recently. So thank you Atlas Obscura for all you do for all of us. If you've never used that website, get over there because it's amazing. There's also, but I also, Jay is the one who did the research. He also used Wikipedia, a website called litsitealaska.org. And there's information from the book written by Jennifer Niven called Ada Blackjack, a true story of survival in the Arctic. So we'll start here. When 23-year-old Inupia woman Ada Blackjack agreed to join a 1921 Arctic expedition to a remote icy island just north of Siberia, she was skeptical. She was told the four explorers making up the rest of her crew would be able to

hunt enough food to sustain them for the two-year trip. And she was there to cook and sew clothes out of the hides and furs left over from that hunting. But one year into the trip, things go so terribly wrong that now she's facing isolation, starvation, and death, possibly bipolar bear. So let me give you a little background first. Ada Blackjack is born Ada Dilutuk on May 10th, 1898, in the small Inupia settlement of Spruce Creek, Alaska. The next closest town is a little village called Solomon, which is eight miles southwest of Spruce Creek. And Ada is born the same year at the Alaskan Gold Rush begins. So a few thousand gold-seeking settlers move into Solomon. The village developed significantly and by 1904,

it's grown into a town with a few saloons, a post office, a phone service, and a boat that takes daily journeys to the nearest city, which is Nome, Alaska. So in 1906, when Ada's, she's only eight years old, and she has about, they think either three or four sisters, her father gets gravely ill after eating like bad meat and her mother's away on a trip. So it leaves her and her sisters to deal with this emergency by themselves. They don't have the resources necessary to help him in Spruce Creek or even in Solomon. So they decide to wrap up their father in skins to keep him warm, put him on a dog sled, and try to make it the 30-mile trip to the hospital that's in Nome. But before they can get there, Ada's father dies, and with nothing left to do, the girls have to

turn around and bring their father's body back home. So not long after that, in 1913, Thriving Village of Solomon is hit by terrible onslaught of coastal storms. There's winds up to 60 miles an hour, there's waves 40 feet high, and many of the town's resources are wiped out entirely, including the railroad tracks. And then just five years later, a flu epidemic sweeps the area, wiping out even more people. So Solomon's population dwindles from roughly 1,000 people down to just 300 living in Solomon and Spruce Creek combined. Wow. And then just before the flu epidemic, Ada's mom decides that she's going to send her to live with Methodist missionaries in Nome so that she can get an education.

So there, she's taught to read and write English up to a third grade level. She learns basic math. She's also taught practical household tasks, like sewing, cooking, cooking Methodist style, washing clothes, ironing, basic, like, homex stuff. And of course, she's taught the Bible because they're missionaries. So even though her education is useful and practical for growing up in Nome, she's away from her family, she's cut off from her culture, and she basically loses her cultural identity in the process of this education. So she remains in the city of Nome and she gets part-time work sewing clothes for local minors. And people know her to be a sweet woman who has a real love for, like, fashion. And she likes to

buy nice clothes, you know, that she can afford with her meager wages. But she's very shy and private. But those who she does open up to find her very charming. And she's also very small. She's just under five feet tall. So in 1914, when she's just 16 years old, she marries a hunter and a dog musher named Jack Blackjack. They move out of the city to a remote part of Seward Peninsula. And they have three kids, but only one survives past infancy, a little boy that they name Bennett. But this is not a loving household. Jack is an abusive husband. He routinely beats and starves Ada until he finally deserts his wife and his son just before her 23rd birthday in 1921. So she's finally free from an abusive husband, but Ada is left with nothing. She's completely

broke and she has nowhere else to go. So she takes her five year old child and she walks the 40 miles to Noam to go back to her mother's house. But Bennett is sick. He has tuberculosis and he can't walk for very long. So Ada carries him for most of that journey. And once she gets back to Noam, she finds work sowing and cleaning, but it isn't enough to take care of herself, her mother and her sick son together, especially because of his illness. And then she has to make the heartbreaking decision to take Bennett to an orphanage so that they can take care of him and tend to his tuberculosis, which she just can't do. She knows it's what's best for him, but she also knows that she has to find a way to make money soon so she can bring her son back home. And that's when she hears

around town that there's a crew of explorers looking for a native woman to cook and sew for them on an upcoming expedition and they're paying well. So Ada is determined to get this job. So let me tell you a little bit about these explorers. Okay. During the late 1800s and into the 1920s, rural America is swept with a popular trend called Chautauqua traveling shows. And basically they were like a traveling circus, except for these crews would go from town to town, set up big tents, charge towns, people a small fee. And then the attractions were teachers, musicians, preachers, showmen, scientists. And it was basically with the goal of bringing the arts, culture and education to America's most remote communities. And one such a speaker on the

Chautauqua circuit is a charismatic Icelandic American explorer named Will Hallimer Stephenson. So this guy dazzles his audience with his tales about venturing by sea to the Arctic wilds and hunting and surviving in the harsh desolate landscapes and people love him. He draws huge crowds. And he inspires young boys everywhere to follow his adventures. And one such boy is a boy named Fred Maurer of Ohio, who always had a strong yearning for adventure, to the point where he when he's 18 years old joins the crew of a ship. And shortly after that in 1906, Stephenson, he visits this ship that's Fred Fred's working on as a guest, and the two meet and they start a friendship. So Stephenson is convinced that there's an entire undiscovered continent further north.

And he wants to be the one to find it. So in 1912, he recruits Fred as a crew member for his 1913 Canadian Arctic expedition aboard a ship called the Carluck. But what was supposed to be a journey to discover new lands up north aboard the Carluck becomes a nightmare when the ship gets trapped in an ice flow just one month after setting sail. And if that's not bad enough, Stephenson Stephenson abandons his crew and makes his way to the Alaskan mainland by foot across the ice, while everyone else is left to fend for themselves on the harsh wrangle island, which is just north of Siberia. Goodbye. Isn't that like a huge no no when you're captaining anything to fucking later days, your entire crew? I mean, any gal who's seen Titanic knows you got to go down without ship

when you're the captain. And this guy bailed and left everybody. In fact, out of the 25 crew members, 11 of them die on this island. Fred Marr is one of these survivors. So he actually got to the island and then ended up living. He's incredibly disillusioned. He's sick and starving. And he goes back home to Ohio to recover. Now, the the remaining crew members and the Canadian government all assume that Stephenson is dead because he just walked off onto the ice and away. He's getting cigarettes. He was just gonna grab some. Yeah, right. I'll be right back. BRB guys. Two years later, another ship's crew spot Stephenson on the icy beach of Cape Kelly, Canada. So he's he just found a spot and just started living there. He'd been living in the Arctic on

his own the whole time. And upon his rescue, he tells crew member Lorne Knight, who will return later. It's just as easy to live up here as it is down home, if you know how Lorne eventually ends up joining Stephenson's crew as well. So clearly he was very charismatic and smooth talker. Okay, so Fred Marr, the guy that goes to Ohio that lived through the abandoned abandonment. When he gets back to full health, he forgets all about that because he just wants to go be an explorer and an adventure again. So he meets back up with Stephenson on the Chautauqua circuit and he becomes his opening act. In 1920, Stephenson is called away from his Chautauqua show. So he has Lorne Knight take his place. And so Knight and Fred Marr becomes fast friends.

And then a third young man, 19 year old Milton Harvey Gale, joined Stephenson's team as the show projectionist. So now he has like this little band of employees that think he's the greatest and follow him around and hang on his every word. Even though Stephenson never set foot on Wrangel Island himself, that's just where the crew ended up. It becomes this huge point of interest for him. And basically, he's decided that he wants to claim it for England. So basically, the six months that his mostly Canadian shipwreck crew spent on the island was the longest anyone had ever inhabited it. But he thinks that's his reason that he should be able to lay claim to it. He just needs to get back to it and like claim it. He believes the island has a lot of potential to

be an air base for people traveling from North America to northeastern Europe. And even though neither Canada nor Britain have any interest in it, Stephenson talks about wanting to go to Wrangel. And his three young employees are all completely down to join him. The problem is that given his prior shipwreck with the calyx, Canada does not want to fund this trip. And realizing that no one in his current crew is British or Canadian, which is the way he thinks he's going to get money from Canada. He recruits a Canadian student in March 1921. He sends a letter to the University of Toronto asking for a suitable student to join their ranks. And they send 20 year old Alan Rudyard Crawford who hasn't graduated, doesn't have any experience, but is very smart and he's an excellent student.

And he really wants to be an explorer. So that's fine for Stephenson. Do you think everyone hated him? And they were just like, take old. What's his face over there? I mean, it would be a good way to be like, oh, a two year Arctic exploration. You know who has to go. You know, who's really smart. Unfortunately, his idea of pulling in a Canadian to get Canadian money, that doesn't work. Stephenson can't get government funding. But he is dead set on getting there. So he pays for the whole trip himself. And he figures once the island is claimed, Canada or Britain will pay him for it. So in the summer of 1921, Stephenson and his crew hash out the plan. They're going to meet up in Nome and they're going to set sail for Wrangel Island

from Nome, Alaska. Because of his status as a Canadian citizen Crawford, the 20 year old is named the captain of the ship. No experience, doesn't know anything about it. But that's just so a Canadian is involved in Canadian that Canada will give him money. It's not a great plan for our big exploration. I don't think I'm not an expert. But it's only a name because Lauren Knight is the one with the actual sailing experience. He's also almost 30. So he'll really be this ship's captain. The most shocking piece of information that I found reading this story is that Stephenson will not actually be joining them. He's not going to go on the trip. He's just sending the boys. He makes so much money off of his books and off of the speeches on the

stockless circuit that he decides he doesn't need to go on any more expeditions. So he just sends asshole other people for real. He's the worst. Stephenson advises the group that they only need to bring six months worth of food and supplies with them because they will just be able to live off the land for their two year stay there. He's never been to this island. But that's his advice. He just says that they need native women who they can hire who can so fur like snow outfits for them so that they'll stay warm in the winter time. It's very specific. Basically like use the whole animal when you hunt you eat and then you take their furs and pelts and skins and you make clothes for yourself and you'll be fine. So it's late summer of 1921 and this is when 23

year old Ada Blackjack hears that the crew is hiring a seamstress and she also hears they're paying $50 a month. This is far more than she's been making. It's a huge chance to make a big chunk of money and go get her son out of the orphanage. She jumps at the opportunity. The crew immediately likes her. It's a huge plus that she can speak and write and read English. So they hire her. They give her money to purchase supplies and they ask her to report to the docs on September 9th 1921 as will the rest of the seamstresses that they have hired. But when Ada arrives on September 9th she notices none of the other women have shown up and that doesn't sit well with her. So she tries to back out but the expedition team convinces her to stay. They tell her that the boat

which is called the silver wave is going to stop at a settlement on the way that's like north of Nome that's going to pick up some other seamstresses. She's still skeptical but she does not want to break her promise and it's a rare chance to make such a large sum of money that she might normally not have. So she agrees to go. So the crew consists of Alan Crawford who's 20. That's the Canadian student. Lorne Knight who's 28. That's he's going to be the captain. Fred Maher he's the first he's the original he's already been through this before and he's going back for more. And then Milton Gale who's 19 and Ada who's 23 and a cat named Victoria. Really? It's an old sailor tradition. It's good luck to have a cat on board. Oh and also probably

catches mice. Verman. Yeah. Cute. Then the vermin don't get into your snacks. Right. It's a Tom and Jerry cartoon essentially. Right. They set sail that day September 9th 1921. So everyone in Nome told these guys the waters are too rough and icy and they will not make it to the island. But they're like no no we're fine. And six days later they do arrive there. So Wrangel Island sits about 87 miles north of the coast of Siberia. So it's way up there. It's 93 miles long and 50 miles wide. In their first year on the island the crew acclimates nicely. So they start they start out living in a tent but then they build themselves a snow house that's really sturdy. And the men's days are spent venturing around the island setting up photography equipment taking

photos of the land to document their findings. The men of course also hunt and then Ada takes all of the pelts and the skins and sows clothing for them out of the leftover furs and hides. And any concerns about whether or not there would be enough animal life on the island to sustain them disappear quickly. They survive mostly on the food rations that they brought. And then in the spring of 1922 the men are able to hunt over 30 seals 10 polar bears and a bunch of geese and ducks. Wow. Which is kind of disturbing and upsetting to think about that polar bear but it was it had to happen for their survival so that they could have this island. How do you even kill a polar bear? That seems impossible. I guess like you kill.

You do wrestle it to the ground and then you strangle it with your hands. It's the only humane. Maybe the best man or bear win. Nope. They have big guns. So everyone in this team keeps a journal during their stay. And Ada's entries are simple and benign at first describing how they first got to Wrangle Island, how it looked very large to her. But then she was told it was just a very small island which it was. But as the summer of 1922 comes to an end and the weather turns colder, the availability of fresh meat starts to decline. And Stephenson, who's back home with his feet up by the fire, he promised to send another ship called the teddy bear to drop off more supplies by the summer's end. So the crew waits patiently for

that delivery. But the ice is grown too thick in the water surrounding the island and the teddy bear is forced to turn back without dropping off supplies. So now as winter approaches, the crew is left to fend for themselves. And by January of 1923, they're starving. To make matters worse, as the winter progresses, the typically strong, you know, Captain Alpha Male type Knight gets scurvy. But he's determined to still be of use. So he insists that he should try to cross the ice to Siberia to go get help. And so he grabs Crawford and they set out on January 8th. They're only gone two weeks and then Knight's scurvy forces them to turn around and come back. Oh, no. So now it's the end of January. The crew situation is dire. And with no other choice,

Crawford, Maurer and Gale, they all decide to venture to Siberia themselves for help. And they leave Ada to care for Lorne Knight with scurvy until they can return with rescuers. Wow. So now she's alone on the island with the sick guy. And she talks about the crew's plan in her journal. And she basically says they promised that they would come back after they got to know them with a ship. And if they couldn't get there with a ship, they would come over with a dog team next winter. They left with a team of five dogs and a big sled of supplies. But even if the men make the trip successfully, a year's wait is a very long time for Ada and Lorne to fend for themselves, especially because Lorne is too sick to do anything at all. He can only be,

he's basically being catered to. And Ada, who if she had grown up with her family and in her village, she would have actually had a bunch of skills that would have been really helpful, but they basically had been taught out of her by the missionaries. So February 1923, Lorne Knight is bedridden. He's covered in bed sores. Ada has to learn how to hunt and trap on her own while tending to a sick and bitter man, soothing his bed sores with bags of warm sand by his feet and pillows stuffed with oatmeal. But as Knight's illness gets worse, so does his treatment of Ada. He's angry at himself for being useless. So he takes it out on her constantly berating her for the tiniest things. He tells her she isn't doing a good enough job

taking care of him, even though she's learning how to do difficult tasks with no formal training and the highest stakes possible, their survival. So she's keeping them fed. She's going out there and hunting. She's doing all the work. She's tending to him and he's criticizing her. Of course. Ada writes in her journal that Knight, quote, never stops to think how much it's hard for women to take four men's place. She's cleaning out his bedpan and he's criticizing her. Fuck you. So for five months, Ada's persistence, her nursing, her hunting, and her cooking skills keep the two of them going until June of 1923, a full five months since the other three crew members left for Siberia. Then on June 23, 1923, Lorne Knight finally passes away. Ada marks

the date in her journal. He died on June 23. I don't know what time he died. Anyway, I write the date just to let Mr. Seffensen know what month he died and on what date. So she's unable to move his body. So there's a dead body in their snow house and she can't move it. She's too small and he's too big, obviously. So she leaves him in a sleeping bag and she builds a wall of boxes around him to prevent wild animals from getting to the body. And then she takes all her stuff and moves from the snow house to the supply tent and she lives there basically to get away from it. So now she's kind of has a little, a tiny bit easier because she doesn't have to tend to like an angry sick man. But she is now completely alone and isolated on this tiny island in the dead of

winter with no food. But one thought keeps her going, which is the thought of being reunited with her son. Her drive to hold him in her arms again and ignites a flame within her and she is determined to survive. But the odds are stacked against her. Because did I mention that there are polar bears on the island? Oh, I forgot about those guys. They're real good smellers, real big teeth, love some meat, love fresh meat. So Ada keeps a gun in ammunition close to her bed at all times. She has a couple close calls and she later recounts an occasion where she was hunting seals and she accidentally comes too close to a polar bear cub. And so the mama bear goes on the attack and Ada says, I turned and ran just as hard as I could until I got to my tent. I was just

about ready to faint when I got there too. So she outran a polar bear. Oh my God, girl. So miraculously, Ada survives this winter alone. And then the warmer the weather gets, the more animal life comes back to the island, which means more food for her. So by the summer, she's taught herself to set fox traps. She's gotten good at really accurate at shooting birds. She's even built herself a lookout above her tent so she can stand up on it and spot polar bears as they're coming. Wow, she's thriving. Yes, that's the word Jay used. She even built herself a little boat out of driftwood and canvas and she takes their photography equipment and that they were using to take pictures of the island and she takes portraits of herself around the camp. I'm going to show you.

Oh my God. Yes. I'm going to show you because share. Look, I want a badass. She is. Yeah, I can see it perfectly. Look at her. Honey. Wait, no, I think because now I'm going to share another one. I'm never used to using this technology before and I don't know how to fucking use it. Oh, look at her. Look at the fashion. She made that. That's gorgeous. And that's her taking pictures of herself deserted on a frozen fucking tundra. Trying to pass the time. That smile says it all. She's like, yeah, yes, that's me. That's right. Check this code out. Isn't that amazing? She made it and the little gloves and the stole. She's awesome. Wow. You guys listening, these pictures are in the Atlas Obscura article. So when you go read it, you'll see the pictures Aida took

of herself to pass the time. It's the greatest. Aida is alone on Wrangle Island for a full three months and she manages to thrive without the men. Jay. Finally on August 20th, 1923, a schooner called the Donaldson, which is captained by one of Stephenson's colleagues, a man named Harold Noyce. Noyce. Noyce. Noyce. It makes its way to the island and they rescue Aida. She survived for two years in the Arctic wilderness and eventually she will learn that she is the five person cruise only survivor. So the three that went to get help all died. Wow. And the crew of the Donaldson is astonished by her survival skills. One crew member later says that Aida, quote, mastered her environment so far that it seems

likely she could have lived there another year, although the isolation would have been a dreadful experience. So when she finally arrives back in Nome, of course, there's a flurry of attention, although locals and there's media. Stephenson issues her payment, which is, of course, a lot by her standards, because it's two years at 50 bucks a month. So that's awesome. But she still gets less than she was promised. So he short shrifts her this SOB after all that. And I wrote, it's too bad they didn't have Twitter back then. She could have just taken right to see. But Aida doesn't care about any of the attention. She doesn't like any of the attention and she doesn't even complain about getting stiffed because she just wants to get

her son Bennett back. Yeah. With money in hand, she had straight for the orphanage and she finally gets to hold her son again. She takes into a hospital down in Seattle that's better equipped to treat his TB. And while he's never cured of the illness entirely, the treatment in Seattle allows him to recover and grow into adulthood. Amazing. Meanwhile, Stephenson does what he does best, which is he capitalizes on Aida's survival story. Very typical. Exploiting it for his own personal gain. He brags to the papers about how he handpicked her for his crew. While Captain Noyce asserts himself as the real hero for finding and rescuing her from the island. Great, guys. Good job, everybody. Good job all around. Great. Did you get your credit?

Did you get your credit? Does it feel good or does it not feel good? Well, that's your work to do later. Aida, still shy, not wanting the attention, agrees to very few interviews. But during one of the rare ones, a reporter calls her brave and she replies, brave, I don't know about that, but I would never give up hope while I'm still alive. The papers dub Aida, the female Robinson Crusoe popular book at the time, racist book. While the others criticize her for not taking better care of night, she actually gets criticized for not keeping him alive. There are people who claim that she could have done more to save him, but her journal entries make it clear he was very ungrateful and that she did everything she could to help him. Despite the popularity of

the story, Aida receives no further compensation for her troubles beyond her regular pay for the trip. And of the various newspapers, articles, stories, and books that were written about her or cite her at the time, she gets no compensation, doesn't, no one throws her money at all. And she basically remains poor for the rest of her life. But she does go on to live a long life. And after she reunites with her son, Bennett, she marries another man by the last name, Johnson, and they have a child together, her second son, Billy Blackjack Johnson. And they raise the boys together in Seward. Eventually, she divorces her second husband. And again, she's left with nothing. So again, she's forced to take her boys to an orphanage until she's back on her feet again.

She works and saves up money. She gets her boys back and they all move to Gnome, where she gets a job herding reindeer for money. And then she also uses the skills that she learned on Wrangel Island to hunt and trap her own food and feed her family. That's so cool. Her son, Billy, who grows up healthy, eventually moves out on his own. But Ada continues caring for Bennett until 1972, when he dies of a stroke at age 58. About a decade later on May 29, 1983, Ada herself passes away in a state retirement home called the Pioneer Home in Palmer, Alaska. She's buried in Anchorage in a grave beside her son, Bennett, and her family remembers her fondly before passing away himself on June 22, 2003 at age 78. Ada's second son, Billy Blackjack Johnson,

said this about his mother, quote, I consider my mother Ada Blackjack to be one of the most loving mothers in this world and one of the greatest heroines in the history of Arctic exploration. She survived against all odds. It's a wonderful story that should not be lost of her self-discovery and her cultural reawakening. And it's a story of a mother fighting to survive to live so she could carry on with her son, Bennett, and help him fight the illness that was consuming him. She succeeded and I was born later. Her story of survival in the Arctic will be a great chapter in the history of the Arctic and Alaska. Time is running out and soon this chapter will fade away unless we care enough to make a record of it. That was from litsitealaska.org,

that quote. And that is the amazing survival story of Ada Blackjack, one of the greatest heroines of our Arctic exploration. Oh my God, Ada! Ada, you did it! That's two badass, strong women in this episode. Great job. I know. I'm looking at the photo right now of her. It's up on the screen still and she's just the most badass looking woman I've ever seen and I'm in awe. I'm just gonna really quickly rewrite the end of that story where Stephenson gives her the money she deserves before staying alive and handling shit and then she gets to start her own line of clothes. Oh, amazing. Because she was already doing it and clearly like, you know what I mean? Like she made that fucking coat. I would wear that immediately. It's so cute.

And functional, of course, and gets, you know, number one on the New York Times bestseller list and the top of Amazon. Well, true, except it was pretty much like I shot a fox. I think it was real standard fare, it sounds to me. Just literally the details of the day. Nothing. But the credit, I think I do love the idea that she does deserve the credit. She deserves to be on the bestseller list just for, just for handling polar bears. Yeah. How about the bestseller life? The number one bestseller of life. Number one, Ada. Amazing. Ada Blackjack. Great job. Great job. Thank you. All right. That was a good one. Got it done. Did it. We did it. Three and a half hours long this time. Don't worry, next week we'll go four hours just for the hell of it. Who's that,

your new podcast? On your new podcast? My new podcast called Four Hours of Silence. Four hours of sacred pausing. Yes. Well, let's address this monumental day. Earlier this week we got very good news here in America because Derek Chauvin actually got prosecuted for murder in the death of George Floyd. He murdered him in the street and he's actually, he was found guilty by the jury. The thing that I was reading that I think was the most kind of, that was affecting me the most on social media was people saying, everyone's talking about that this is this, you know, defining moment in America when actually this is what's supposed to happen when you kill somebody. Yep. It's, it's standard,

it should happen every time. It's a human being being, being held accountable for their actions against another human being. And that's all that's been asked time and time again for a very long time. Yeah, it's very good. I almost started crying when I saw it. I got chills. I was really hopeful for it, but of course we're all really scared that it wasn't going to turn out this way and you know. Yeah, there's, there's good reason to be scared, but yeah, just some, just justice actually took place. Definitely. I don't know. I don't even know why we're saying it, but we're not going to not talk about it. Yeah. We can't not talk about it, but also there's no way to encapsulate any of this in a sound bite way. Right. And yeah, exactly. All right. Well,

I think that's our fucking array, obviously. Yeah. I mean, ultimately we're both sighing and we're very worried about how we're stating this, but ultimately this is forward movement. It's not enough, but it's good. It is good. Yeah. It's very good. Definitely. Well, yeah. Thank you guys for listening and being here and giving us a little platform to talk our shit. And thank you, Stephen Ray Morris, our incredible audio engineer for supporting us for five freaking years. And stay sexy and don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie?