Ada Blackjack-The Inuit Woman Who Survived the Arctic Alone

Wrangel Island is located in the harsh Arctic waters of the East Siberian and Chukchi seas, north of the Siberian coast. Surrounded by ice for most of the year and blown throughout by strong cyclonic winds, this region is the last known habitat of the woolly mammoth and has the highest concentration of polar bears in the world. It is also the site of one of the most Quixote-like and unfortunate Arctic explorations in history. In 1921, five people came here and sparked a diplomatic incident. Two years after that, only one person survived to tell the story. That person was a 25-year-old Inyupik named Ada Blackjack. Here is the story of Ada Blackjack, who survived two years as a survivor alone.

In the 1920s, a group gathered that declared Wrangel Island to be British territory.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a well-known and charismatic Arctic explorer, led the team. Stefansson was trying to claim Wrangel Island as part of the British Empire, even though no one asked him to. Since she had financed this mission herself, she had no intention of giving up on his request.

Stefansson recruited three Americans and a Canadian to lead the team. In addition, Alaska Natives would accompany them to ensure the crew reached Wrangel safely. After the team left Seattle on August 18, 1921, they traveled to Nome, Alaska, to meet with the Alaskan natives who would accompany them. After some effort, they found a ship that would take them to Wrangel. But Alaska Natives refused to go with them. The only person who decided to go with them was a 25-year-old Inyupik named Ada Blackjack (an Inuit people living in north and northwest Alaska).

The team wanted to leverage Inyupik's basic hunting and survival skills. However, these were skills that Ada didn't have. Ada Blackjack, whose real name is Ada Deletuk, was born in 1898 in Spruce Creek, Alaska. She was sent to Nome at an early age by his mother. Here he was raised by Methodist missionaries who taught him to read, write and cook "whites' food". Ada became an expert tailor and her skills in making fur garments were invaluable.

Stefansson had promised to pay $50 a month to come to Ada on an expedition. This money was much more than Ada would have earned by doing any other business. He also needed this money. Her husband, Jack Blackjack, whom she married at the age of 16, had beaten Ada, starved, and abandoned her. Ultimately, she divorced him. Two of Ada's three children died, and her surviving child, Bennett, suffered from chronic tuberculosis. However, Ada gave her child to the orphanage because she could not take care of her.

Ada Blackjack was afraid of going on an expedition and had doubts

Ada was conflicted about going on an expedition. On the other hand, he had a deep-rooted fear of polar bears. Ada had visited a shaman in Nome before her expedition. The shaman told him that death and danger were at hand and that he should be wary of fire and knives.

She also did not approve of traveling alone to a remote island with four men, and the men in the team did not find it appropriate to travel with a single woman. But Ada had promised, and she was confident that more Inyupiks would be recruited than they had stopped in Siberia. The team, consisting of Canadian Allan Crawford, 20, Americans Lorne Knight and Fred Maurer, 28, Milton Galle, 19, and Ada Blackjack, 25, set off on September 9.

A week later they arrived at Wrangel harbor, where they were unable to recruit any Inupiki. As such, Ada began to feel really overwhelmed. While the team declared that the island in question was British property, Ada walked to the beach and wept looking at the ship leaving the island.

Despite everything, the weather was surprisingly mild and the team quickly adapted to the climatic conditions of the region. However, after a few weeks, the situation was reversed. Angrily homesick and frightened Ada Blackjack withdrew. Every time he saw the men's knives, he was frightened, and the shaman's warning came to mind. She knew that none of the men specifically wanted her there, and that they all regretted taking her with them, and she was convinced that Knight would kill her.

The men on the team ruled out Ada Blackjack and it became harder and harder to survive each day they spent at Wrangel.

Ada tried to kill herself one day, but failed. Later, believing that there were spirits disguised as foxes and that he would be treated well if he could find them, he moved away from the camp and followed the fox's tracks. But she didn't find what she was hoping for and went back to camp, she. She cooked and sewed from time to time. In response, the men first tried to deceive him and mocked him. Later, they did not feed Ada and forced her to stay outside in the cold. They also tied him to a flagpole and threatened to whip him at one point.

As winter approached, the men began to weaken. Then Ada gave herself to work. He did his best to survive the dark and cold months and deter polar bears from approaching the camp. The entire team was looking forward to the summer season and the arrival of help. But even as summer passed, the glaciers around the island did not melt, and Stefansson's ship from Alaska could not reach them.

Ada Blackjack is the only survivor

On June 23, Knight died. Ada couldn't bear to pull Knight out of her sleeping bag, so she built a wooden barricade around her to protect her from wild animals and moved into the storage tent to avoid the smell of decay. The island was truly alone now. He hoped that the others would return, but he knew it was highly unlikely now. What would happen to him if he had to spend another winter in this cruel and remote place? Would she ever see Bennett again?

With supplies running low shortly after Knight's death, she focused on collecting eggs and used wood and skins to build himself a boat. However, the wind carried the boat towards the sea. Then Ada built another boat and began to wait. On August 20, she awoke from her slumber believing she had heard a voice. Hearing the same sound again, she took his glasses and dashed out. There was a fog covering the island. As the mist lifted for a brief moment, Ada saw a ship. She ran to the beach and splashed into the water just as a boat reached the shore.

With mixed feelings, Ada was waiting for Blackjack, Crawford, Maurer and Galle to be on board. But the man who got off the boat was Stefansson's accomplice, Harold Noice. Noice was shocked to not see any of the men on the team. Because the only survivor was Ada Blackjack, an Eskimo tailor who was reluctant on her expedition, humiliated, scolded, and tied up, forced to learn to hunt, trap, and live in the Arctic by herself. Ada was very happy to be able to return home to her son, and with this joy she fell into Noice's arms and began to cry.

His return and the death of other expedition members caused great public outrage, but Ada tried to avoid it all. She took his son Bennett to Seattle for tuberculosis treatment, had another son named Billy, and eventually returned to Alaska. He died there on May 29, 1983 at the age of 85 and is buried in Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery. There is a plaque on his grave that reads "Hero of Wrangel Island".

Almost a century after this event, the story of Ada Blackjack continues to resonate and inspire, especially among Alaska Natives.