"Reads like fiction"

In 1921, notorious explorer Stefansson hires twentyish female Inuit Ada Blackjack as seamstress to four young Anglo-American males he recruited to claim the uninhabited Arctic Wrangel Island for the British Empire. The crew was under supplied as Stefansson expected them to live off the frozen tundra. They lacked any substantial sub zero weather experience though two once traveled beyond the Circle. At least the men (Crawford, Knight, Maurer, and Galle) saw this expedition as a youthful lark. The mission failed miserably and three of the team headed to Siberia, leaving Ada to tend to the dying fifth companion. Two years later, Ada is the only one to return home; nothing but rumors of white male sightings beyond the Arctic Circle was ever heard from the trio.

ADA BLACKJACK is a great biography of a heroine who risks all so that her ailing son can receive proper medical care back in Nome. The book rips the dynamic leader Stefannson who remained behind in relative comfort though that might be an unfair historiography slight. His behavior is comparable to the World War I generals living in luxury in London, Paris, and Berlin while the grunts lacked shoes and breathed poison gas or presidents on campaign fundraisers while troops at war receive one MRE. Ada is a great individual whose survival is so spectacular one would think her tale is fiction. The media frenzy that follows her return brings readers back to reality as the frozen island seems warmer than the press corps. With this superb tome and the delightful ICE MASTER, Jennifer Niven is a leader of chronicling exciting and inspiring but doomed real life Arctic expeditions.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 23, 2003

Summary

From the author of The Ice Master comes the remarkable true story of a young Inuit woman who survived six months alone on a desolate, uninhabited Arctic island. In September 1921, four young men and Ada Blackjack, a diminutive 25-year-old Eskimo woman, ventured deep into the Arctic in a secret attempt to colonize desolate Wrangel Island for Great Britain. Two years later, Ada Blackjack emerged as the sole survivor of this ambitious polar expedition. This young, unskilled woman -- who had headed to the Arctic in search of money and a husband -- conquered the seemingly unconquerable north and survived all alone after her male companions had perished. Following her triumphant return to civilization, the international press proclaimed her the female Robinson Crusoe. But whatever stories the press turned out came from the imaginations of reporters: Ada Blackjack refused to speak to anyone about her horrific two years in the Arctic. Only on one occasion - - after charges were published falsely accusing her of causing the death of one her companions -- did she speak up for herself. Jennifer Niven has created an absorbing, compelling history of this remarkable woman, taking full advantage of the wealth of first-hand resources about Ada that exist, including her never-before-seen diaries, the unpublished diaries from other primary characters, and interviews with Ada's surviving son. Ada Blackjack is more than a rugged tale of a woman battling the elements to survive in the frozen north -- it is the story of a hero.