Kick-Ass Women from History #2: Ada Blackjack

Ada Blackjack was an Iñupiaq woman famous for her role in an ill-fated arctic expedition to Wrangel Island. Her journey from impoverished seamstress to sole survivor of that brutally unforgiving journey is the stuff of which legends are made.

Background

Born Ada Deletuk in 1898 in Solomon, Alaska, life was harsh from the beginning: she lost two of her three children in infancy, was abandoned by her husband, and struggled to provide for her surviving son, Bennett, who suffered from tuberculosis. In 1921, desperate for money to pay for Bennett’s medical care, Ada accepted a position as a cook and seamstress on an expedition to Wrangel Island, a desolate Arctic outpost. She had no survival training of any kind and was physically slight, standing less than five feet tall and weighing barely a hundred pounds.

The Expedition

The expedition consisted of five people: Allan Crawford (Canadian, leader); Lorne Knight, Milton Galle, and Fred Maurer (American); and, of course, Ada. Maurer was a survivor of a shipwreck that had been stranded on Wrangel Island for eight months so was deemed as a sort of local expert. The purpose of the expedition was to claim the island for Canada through virtue of having people living on it for two years.

Survival

The mission went fine for the first year or so, but when a resupply ship failed to arrive, things started to turn. There was not enough game to hunt to keep everybody fed, so nutritional deficiencies started to take hold. Knight succumbed to scurvy and was bedridden. The other three men, out of desperation, set out to cross the ice to Siberia to search for food and aid, leaving Ada alone with Knight. For six months, she nursed Knight, acting as “doctor, nurse, companion, servant and huntswoman in one” according to her diary.

After Knight’s death, Ada was left utterly alone. She overcame her fear of guns and polar bears, learned to hunt seals and foxes, and even constructed a makeshift boat and kerosene stove, demonstrating ingenuity that surpassed even the professional explorers she had accompanied.

Heroism

Ada’s determination to survive was fueled by her devotion to her son. The thought of reuniting with Bennett gave her the strength to endure isolation, starvation, and the ever-present threat of polar bears. Despite having been bullied and marginalized by her male companions, Ada recovered from despair and "threw herself ferociously to the task of surviving in order to be reunited with her son”, again according to her diary. Indeed her diary reveals the immense burdens she shouldered, taking on the work of four men while caring for the sick and dying Knight.

Perhaps the most profound aspect of Ada’s heroism was her selflessness. She risked her life not for fame or fortune, but to provide a future for her ailing child. Her journey to Wrangel Island was motivated solely by the hope of earning enough money to care for Bennett; it was perhaps her only hope, as a despised minority of no means or prospects, of doing so. Even after her ordeal, Ada used her savings to take Bennett to Seattle for medical treatment, continuing to put his needs above her own.

Rescue and Aftermath

When Ada was finally rescued in August 1923, she returned to a flurry of media attention, hailed as the “female Robinson Crusoe”. Yet she shied away from the spotlight, insisting she was simply a mother trying to get home to her son. Her heroism was largely forgotten for decades, but recent retellings have revived her legacy as a symbol of quiet, unyielding courage.

Ada Blackjack died in 1983 at the age of 85, her gravestone reading: “HEROINE – WRANGEL ISLAND EXPEDITION”. The Alaska Legislature posthumously recognized her as a true and courageous hero.

Closing Thoughts

Ada's heroism is not the loud, brash, flashy kind one ordinarily sees held up. Hers was instead a more profound variety, born of selflessness, adaptability, and resilience. Where four professional explorers succumbed to the harshness of being stranded in the high Arctic, she endured and survived, all so that her son could have access to medical treatments.

For me, personally, this is a truer form of heroism than the grandiloquent tales told around campfires of great deeds of derring-do. This is heroism that exemplifies the best of the best in humanity.

And it rested in a marginalized woman.