| Abstract |
"In 1921, four men ventured into the Arctic for a top-secret expedition: an attempt to claim an uninhabited island in Siberia for Great Britain. With the men was a 23-year-old Inuit woman named Ada Blackjack, who had signed on as a seamstress to earn money to care for her sick son. Conditions soon turned dire for the team when they were unable to kill enough game to survive. Three of the men tried to cross the frozen sea for help but were never seen again, leaving Ada with one ill team member who soon died of scurvy. She learned to survive in the icy world, teaching herself to trap and shoot animals, building a crude boat that allowed her to seal-hunt among the icy floes, and crafting a stove from old cans she cut and hammered together. Finally rescued in August 1923, after two months alone and two years total on the island, Ada became a celebrity, with newspapers calling her a "female Robinson Crusoe." Packed with sidebars on relevant topics such as cats on ships, Arctic hysteria, and Inuit culture and beliefs; excerpts from diaries, letters, and telegrams; historic photos; a map; source notes; and a bibliography, Marooned in the Arctic is an indispensible resource for any young adventure lover, classroom, or library"-- Provided by publisher. |
