I found this 70's San Nicolas Island souvenir hoody sweatshirt recently, and never having heard of the place, did some googling.
Turns out it's one of the Channel Islands off the coast of central California, known for the story of Juana Maria, the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island.
Basically in the 1830s, her island was invaded by Russian fur trappers, and then soon evacuated by missionaries from Santa Barbara, but she somehow missed the boat. She survived on San Nicolas Island alone for 20 years, in a hut made of whale bones, until she was found and brought over to Santa Barbara in 1853, where she smiled and and sang songs and was very happy, by all accounts.
Until she died 7 weeks later from dysentery.
Link to the sweatshirt here: 70s vintage San Nicolas Island raglan hooded sweatshirt
Great story! Weird, though... in all likelihood, she would have survived longer had she not returned to civilization.
ReplyDelete@patrick - no doubt! it did seem she was happy to be around other people for 7 weeks, though she wasn't able to communicate via language.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post.
ReplyDeleteHi ggreat reading your post
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