When Ada Blackjack agreed to join an Arctic expedition in 1921, she wasn’t seeking fame or adventure. She was a young Iñupiat woman from Alaska, and accepted the job as a cook and seamstress because she desperately needed money to pay for treatment for her son, who had tuberculosis. Instead, she found herself stranded on the remote Arctic outpost of Wrangel Island, where every other member of the expedition either died or vanished. By the time a rescue ship reached the island in August 1923, Blackjack had survived alone for nearly two months by trapping Arctic foxes, hunting birds, sewing warm clothing, repairing equipment, and documenting her ordeal in a diary.
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