Qiqniikpak after the death of Oonark's father. Oonark lived with her mother. The Danish explorer, Knud Rasmussen, crossed the Canadian Arctic by dogsled and visited the Jessie Oonark's camp when she was just a teenager during his Fifth Thule Expedition. Utkuhikhalingmiut represented the first white contact. In the 1980s, Mame Jackson taped Jessie Oonark's description of the encountered broadcast on CBC radio. Oonark was married at a young age to Qabluunaq, (Kabloona, Kabloonak) the son of Naatak and Nanuqluq from Gjoa Haven. Natak joined them in their hunting camp. Although Kabloona was "a good hunter and a respected fur trader", the family was often hungry. Their oldest daughter remembers the periods of hunger. Oonark's mother-in-law, Naatak, would boil a caribou skin into a "broth" in an attempt to appease the hunger. Even in 2007, Baker Lake Inuit kept animal bones for marrow patek. Their first daughter, Janet Kigusiuq, was born at Putuqsuqniq in the Back River area in 1926. She had eleven more children including Joshuan Nuilaliq, Mamnguqsualuq, Victoria Mamnguqsualuq, Miriam Nanuqluq, Mary Yuusipik, Peggy Gabluunaq, Nancy Pukingnaq (born 1940–), William Noah, Isumataq, Qaqurialuq, Amarouk, and Makitgag. In the 1940s, Oonark was assigned a Disc number by the Canadian federal government— E2-384. In the 1940s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) conducted a census of Inuit populations. They assigned the infamous identification numbering system using discs. These disc numbers were dropped during "Operation Surname" in the 1960s. In the 1950s there was a slump in the fox fur trade. Sometime around 1953 and 1954, Kabloonak and her four youngest children died of illness in the Garry Lake area when William Noah was still a child and Nancy Pukingrnak was in her early teens and they were still dependent on her. Luke Anguhadluq, camp leader helped her at this time. Starvation The annual caribou migration shifted away from the area where they lived, leaving many Inuit to starve. The Back River Inuit, including Oonark and her family, had a hard time during the starvation period of the 1950s. The winter of 1957–1958 was marked by a severe shortage of country food in the Back River area. Oonark and her daughter Nancy Pukingrnak were starving. William Noah walked from their camp to Baker Lake in March to seek help. They were airlifted by the Canadian armed forces to Baker Lake. Baker Lake When Oonark first arrived in Baker Lake in 1958 she