Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Hyperion Press
Release Date: November 2003
ISBN: 0786868635
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Hardcover
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Genre: Nonfiction/Biography
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Beverly J. Rowe
Reviewer Notes:  
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Ada Blackjack
A True Story of Survival in the Arctic
By Jennifer Niven


     Ada Blackjack was the only survivor of an Arctic expedition to the remote, uninhabited, Wrangel Island. In an effort to gain possession of the island for Canada...or the United States...the controversial, egomaniacal, Vilhjalmur Stefansson sent four young men to that remote and barren island, with Ada as their seamstress. Stefansson didn't really care which country claimed ownership, but the only country that was really interested in Wrangel was Russia. Jennifer Niven's research lays bare the self-serving motives of Stefansson, and the trust and inexperience of the ambitious young explorers.

     In spite of the fact that Ada was to cook and make clothing for the four explorers, she knew nothing about preparing hides for sewing. As an Inuit Indian, the men thought Ada would have hunting and trapping skills too, but she knew nothing about Arctic survival. None of the party was expecting the type of hardships they encountered in the forbidding polar landscape.

     Steffanson sent enough supplies to sustain them for a year if they could live off the land, and he was to send a supply ship at the end of the year. The ship was unable to reach Wrangel Island, and hardship and hunger plagued the inexperienced adventurers.

     Niven is a wonderful storyteller who provides dramatic narrative that reads like great fiction, and keeps you glued to the page. She tells of Ada Blackjack's unforgettable courage and resourcefulness in the face of certain death. At the end of two years, Ada was the only one of the five to return home. The story of her survival is a tribute to the undaunted tenacity of this tiny Alaska native, who took the position so that her ailing son could receive medical care back in Nome. Her treatment by Stefansson and the rest of the world after she returned home was shameful, and Niven's telling of it brought tears to my eyes.