Sadly, she only lasted seven weeks at the mission, the change in diet having resulted in her contracting dysentery. Sign language allowed her to tell some of her story, and she also delighted in dancing and singing for Santa Barbara residents. Around 50 years old and in good health when she was brought to Santa Barbara Mission, where she lived with Nidever and his wife, she could not communicate directly because no one was left who spoke her language. She was reportedly a very happy and pleasant person. They followed footsteps in the sand and found her skinning a seal and wearing a skirt made of green cormorant feathers. After several failed attempts to find her, a fur trapper named George Nidever and his crew finally tracked her down. The knowledge of someone having been left behind never lasted through the years. There were stories of a lone woman seen running along the beaches of San Nicolas Island by fishermen.

In any case, the woman lived alone on the island for the next 18 years, surviving on roots, seal meat, and shellfish meat. This is a later addition to the story, attributed by some to Victorian romanticism. Some say the young woman was not initially left behind, but jumped off the ship when she realized a young boy, either her son or younger brother, had been left on the island. During the evacuation, a young woman was left behind when a storm forced the departure of the ship. In 1835, it was arranged that the Nicoleños would be removed to mainland California for their own protection. They clashed with the Nicoleños, killing most of them. She was part of the Nicoleño tribe that inhabited the island, the most remote of the Channel Islands at 61 miles off the coast of California, for some 10,000 years.Īs in the novel, Native Alaskan hunters came to the island to hunt otter. Named Karana in Scot O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island’s native name is not known.

Her story inspired one of the most popular children’s novels ever written. From 1835 to 1853, a Native American woman, stranded after the evacuation of her people, lived alone on San Nicolas Island.

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