Skíl Jáadei (Linda Schrack) was born and raised in Southeast Alaska. She is Haida from the Shark House and a member of the Yahkw Janáas clan, Raven Moiety.

Skíl Jáadei is a Term Assistant Professor of Alaska Native Languages for the University of Alaska Southeast and has been teaching X̱aad Kíl at UAS since 2014. She has a Master of Arts in Indigenous Languages and Linguistics from Simon Fraser University, which has been completed and will be awarded in June 2023.

Skíl Jáadei worked for the Ketchikan Indian Community Johnson O’Malley program beginning in 2006. In 2008 she initiated the change of the program from cultural and arts to an emphasis on Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida language mentor-apprentice programs. While Haida is Skíl Jáadei’s focus, she continually advocates for Tsimshian and Tlingit languages and culture.

Her grandparents are the late Dr. Robert Cogo and Nora (Edenshaw) Cogo, who were actively involved with language preservation in the 1970s. It is Skíl Jáadei’s passion and life mission to continue the work of her grandparents and the others that have gone on before us. It is important to her that the Haida language and culture continue for generations to come. “When our children speak our language, it will survive.”