Customer Reviews

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic

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Absorbing account of an Inuit woman who was the sole survivor of a tragic Arctic expedition and her four male companions who did not make it. Born Ada Delutuk in 1898, when she was eight she was taken in by Methodist missionaries in Nome and talk to read, write, sew and cook. At sixteen she married Jack Blackjack, was divorced at 21, one son out of 3 children survived, but she was unable to care for him because of his tuberculosis. She was persuaded to accompany a group of young men on a land claims expedition to Wrangle Island, a desolate place above the Arctic circle between Canada and Siberia, to cook and sew for them. For Ada the money is good and will enable her to support her son she is promised the mission will be for one year only and that two other Eskimo families will accompany them, but they abandon the mission at the last moment.

This mission had been organized by Vilhjalmur Steffanson, an irresponsible publicity seeker who influenced the young men to go, in their eyes Steffanson was a hero. It was his opinion that it was as easy to live in Arctic as anywhere else, nothing to it, though he himself had never done it, and had already led a disastrous mission once before, he had abandoned his crew and men had died.

Ada and her companions set out in September 1921, under supplied but even so they survived. After a year though the relief crew and ship promised by Steffanson did not arrive and then things became more desperate as supplies were too low to survive another winter. It was decided that Ada would stay with one of the men too sick to travel and the other three would strike out across the ice for the Siberian coast When the ship finally did arrive in 1923, Ada was alone.

The author has done an incredible job of taking a dry event from the past and making it come to life. This is a great historical novel and I have put her book "The Ice Master" on my list of books I want. There are numerous excerpts from newspaper articles written at the time and letters written between the families left behind. I loved Ada's story of The Lady in the Moon, and found it striking that she was able to survive under formidable conditions but had trouble functioning in a city. Her life of drinking, TB and broken marriages is sad, but she still shines through as an inspiration and a survivor.

Like so many others I've devoured every book on polar exploration that I can get my hands on. I was a big fan of Niven's Ice Master and knew I wanted to read whatever came next from her. Then here came Ada Blackjack, the most unforgettable hero to ever walk out of the Arctic. The fact that she's a woman in a (largely) man's world, that she lacked all knowledge of polar survival, and that she was the only one to walk away from a horrific expedition (after teaching herself all the skills needed to survive) makes her compelling enough, but Niven's story of this obscure, inspiring Eskimo woman transcends the adventure genre and introduces us to a simple, real-life, unexceptional woman who became movingly, unforgettably exceptional.

Ada Blackjack reads like a documentary and can be a bit dry at times as it really tells the greater story of the doomed Wrangel Island Expedition of the Arctic. But the deeper story of Ada Blackjack, the lone survivor of the expedition, is riveting. Her simple faith and love for her son gives her the strength to endure unimaginable hardship. This woman should not be forgotten, nor should the folly of the men who pioneered the expedition go unremembered. Kudos to author Niven.

This is a very interesting true story, of four young men lured to their deaths in the polar regions by V. Steffanson's tales of the "Friendly Arctic" where survival was easy. With minimal arctic experience, the four undertake an expedition to "claim" Wrangel Island for Canada (even though Canada did not want it and the island was known by all to belong to Russia.) Poorly planned, poorly equipped, and poorly executed, the fumbling expedition establishes a camp on Wrangel Island, raises the Canadian and British flags, and hunkers down to a slow demise of abandonment by V. Steffanson.

Ada Blackjack, a young Eskimo woman hired by the four to serve as seamstress, is recruited from Nome Alaska. Though descended from Eskimo people, she knows more of the "white men's" culture than her own, being able to read and write, etc. At first reluctant to undertake her responsibilities, as the privations of the expedition set in she becomes a stalwart support to the others, cooking, making arctic clothing from skins, etc. After three of the men sled off across the frozen sea on a hopeless gambit to get to Siberia for help, never to be seen again, Ada is left alone with the remaining member of the expedition, who is dying of scurvy. Left to her own resources, Ada teaches herself to hunt, trap, shoot, and build boats, recalling techniques and skills observed during childhood from observing her forebears. Ada faces her greatest fear, the dread "Nanook" (polar bears) that roam the island. Fighting starvation, hopelessness, and sickness, Ada valiantly strives to keep the remaining expedition member alive, only to see him slowly waste away from his sickness and die. Ada sojourns another two months before a rescue ship finally arrives, finding her to be the sole survivor of the expedition after over two years.

Returning to civilization, Ada is exploited by her rescuer and by V. Steffanson, who also exploit the memories, diaries, and belongings of the doomed expedition members. The book recounts Ada's subsequent life, trying to raise her sons and make a living in a world no less harsh and unforgiving than the one she had known in the arctic.

This book was a fascinating, well-written read and I intend to read the author's other book.

I have become a junkie for true hardship books, and the arctic exploration books are my first love- they are what took me down this road.
Jennifer Niven does a fine job of fleshing out and making real each person, each family, each government that was involved in these missions into the mostly unknown and proven deadly arctic areas of the world. She lets us know what makes people tick, influences like nationality, religion, sex, race, class- each person comes with their background and reasons for their actions and beliefs explained as fully as possible.

These people are made real and human, so you get their shortcomings and faults, not just a politically correct whitewashing that fits in to our modern world view. The ways of the world were different then, Ada was (mis-)treated the way a female eskimo rated within that world.

It is all a sad story, really. Ada often was her own worst enemy. Those poor boys were so full of faith in their leader, who deserved none of it. If I go on I will end up giving too much story away. Good book- get hooked and read more arctic exploration books!

And always remember to QUESTION AUTHORITY!

If you like inspirational stories, this is a great one. Ada Blackjack is an amazing woman, every inch a hero, even though she is also a flawed, fallible person. That makes her even more likable and easy to identify with. I highly recommend this book to anyone craving a good story, a good adventure, or inspiration. I will think twice about complaining about the mundane daily details of my life now, after reading what Ada and her colleagues endured.

I havn't even finished the book (about 3/4 through it) but I am so impressed by the writer's style, and the general interest of the subject, that I am compelled to recommend it highly. This is one of those books I just can't wait to pick up again. The writer's style is so concise, logical, and flowing that the story moves along effortlessly. Niven has obviously taken a huge amount of information and distilled it skillfully into a lean narrative. Buy it! I am a lover of the adventure/survival genre, particularly as regards the Arctic, and this book is one of the good ones!

I picked up this book knowing nothing about the artic expedition to Wrangel Island. I found the story initially quite fascinating but that the book really bogged down when the author insisted on including the contents of every letter that the survivors families wrote over the next ten years. I feel that the book could have been much shorter and still powerfully portrayed the struggles of Ada and her companions to survive Wrangel Island.

I really enjoyed this book. It took you to a different time with different mores and values, and you can see Ada as a victim of prejudice, in being a woman, and in being a native Alaskan from the young men she went to Wrangell Island with. The arrogance, spins, misinformation, responsibility avoidance, and power plays that were done after the expedition was over must be compared with politics today. History repeats itself, indeed. I would highly recommend this book.

"Ada Blackjack" is a tribute to author Jennifer Niven's mastery of her subject matter, and remarkable ability to breathe life into events long relegated to dusty shelves of obscure national archives. In what can only be described as a tour de force of historical research, Niven reconstructs the story of what really happened to Ada, the sole survivor of an ill-fated Arctic expedition that cost four men their lives and sparked an international controversy. As evidenced by her first book, "The Ice Master," Niven is a consummate storyteller with a talent for piecing together facts (in this case spanning several decades) in order to present an unbiased account of tragedy and triumph. The dramatic narrative is never forced, as the story almost seems to tell itself under Niven's artful direction. At no point is she tempted to judge or malign any of her characters, despite their flaws and failings. Niven's work is a haunting, bittersweet and well-deserved homage to an unassuming heroine whose life had until now been largely overlooked and forgotten.