1. Ada Blackjack was an Inupiaq woman who accompanied an Arctic expedition to the uninhabited Wrangel Island, north of Siberia, eventually living alone on the island for eight months after the other expedition members left or died.
14 Facts About Ada Blackjack
1. 2.
Ada Blackjack's father died of food poisoning when she was eight years old, and her mother sent her and her sister, Rita, to a Methodist mission school in Nome, Alaska.
3.
Ada Blackjack was raised by missionaries who taught her to read English and sew.
4.
Jack abused Ada Blackjack, finally deserting her and their surviving son, Bennett.
5.
Ada Blackjack became committed to making money to be reunited with her son.
6.
Ada Blackjack believed that the Arctic would be easily habitable for those willing to adapt.
7.
Ada Blackjack had many misgivings about joining the expedition, especially because she had been misled to believe she would be only one of many Alaska Native people to join the crew.
8.
The other three men were never seen again, and so Ada Blackjack was alone, except for the expedition's cat, Victoria.
9.
Ada Blackjack survived in the extremely cold conditions for eight months, learning to hunt foxes, build boats, and sew parkas out of reindeer skin.
10.
Ada Blackjack was rescued on August 19,1923 by a former colleague of Stefansson's, Harold Noice.
11.
Ada Blackjack used the money she saved to take her son to Seattle, Washington, to treat his tuberculosis.
12.
Ada Blackjack was a quiet person and hated the media circus that developed around her and the attempts by Stefansson and her rescuer Noice to exploit her story.
13.
Except for her expedition salary and a few hundred dollars she had earned for the furs she trapped on Wrangel, Ada Blackjack did not benefit from her ordeal and received no compensation from the books that were written about her.
14.
Ada Blackjack died in the state retirement facility, the Pioneer Home, in Palmer, Alaska, and was buried in Anchorage.