Christian Innuit Woman Ada Blackjack Survives Brutal Wrangell Island Against All Odds!
(There are many internet photos of Ada and the Wrangell Island expedition of 1921)
Ada and her health-challenged son Bennett.
We all have likely heard a story of the sort where the one with no chance unexpectedly won, the person that should have been wounded emerged unscathed, or someone who should have died did not. Well, these are things that could be said of a Ada Deletuk, later Ada Blackjack, a young Alaskan Inuit woman of the Inupiat language branch of that people. (Eskimo, which means 'raw meat eaters' per some sources, is not used as much these days, but she was an Eskimo in the parlance of the day.) Ada was born in Spruce Creek, Alaska and her father died of food poisoning (spoiled meat, it is recorded) when she was eight years old. Her mother, unable to care for the children, placed Ada and her sister Rita into a Methodist Mission to be raised up. There she learned about Jesus, the speaking of English and the skills of a seamstress and how to cook 'white people food' as she later worded it. She lived a tough youth in some ways, but this would all prove key to shaping her future!
At about age 16 she married a Caucasian man, a dog musher and sometimes trapper named Jack Blackjack. They had three children in several years time. Two of them died very early, but a third child named Bennett survived yet was sickly, with multiple health problems including tuberculosis. Unfortunately, Jack Blackjack was said to be an abusive husband, beating and even starving Ada at times, though we only know one side of the story. Yet there assuredly was a lot of alcoholism there and then in Alaska and the winters tended to be long, cold, and morose. Besides, these were especially rough years throughout the world, with WW1 just winding down, and the 1918 Spanish Flu wiping out the majority of the population in some Alaskan villages. Hardships and death were familiar affairs.
Jack eventually abandoned his family and Ada was left with the daunting task of carrying her small child, Bennett, 40 miles along the trail to Nome where she then stayed with her mother. That's a fairly serious hike even for a young woman of about 23. There were the bears and the weather and the strangers you might encounter. But, though she was not raised up in the full nomadic traditions of the earlier Arctic Eskimos (she was in fact a town girl really, and had not been raised to know the survival tricks of the arctic wilderness) she was never the less possessed of a certain amount of can-do spirit when it was needed. So she walked those 40 miles to Nome carrying her baby and perhaps a few possessions. She was fallen away some from the Christian faith she had been brought up with in the Methodist Mission days, but she was a Christian woman walking beneath the eyes of her God and God got her through it safely.
So for some time her life consisted of living with her mother there in Nome. Nome was post gold-rush, post Spanish Flu, it had bad drinking water, large deep puddles of water in the town streets at times, it suffered from high crime and pervasive alcoholism. It had gone from 12,500 souls in 1900 to about 1/3 as many in the early 1920's when Ada dwelt there with her mother. The population decline was caused mostly by the gold rush going bust and from the Spanish Flu pandemic. It was a pretty rough period of time for Nome! There were probably lots of abandoned buildings available in Nome just then! But, having a few thousand remaining residents, it was easily the largest city in the area. It was civilization!
Nome in the 1920's was not always 'post-card from paradise' material. Alaska weather can be incommodious and a struggle!
What was Ada like? You get a sense that she was a girl loyal to her family, but with a dreamy, fanciful side. She was remembered by locals as a girls' sort of girl. A young single mother who had responsibilities, she was also a young woman with hopes and dreams, though not always practical ones, perhaps. She was known to enjoy the new clothing fashions she saw in the magazines...all of those fancy and artful 1920's hats and dresses...she liked to buy the trendiest used discount clothing she could afford. But she couldn't afford so much! She was mainly making her living sewing for various customers. And she had to give up her son Bennett for what she hoped was a short time due to his medical requirements being beyond her means. Yet she loved her son very much and felt failed that she couldn't care for him. Even if she was not entirely Spartan with her finances she was in need of far more money than she earned due to all of the circumstances of her situation, being a single mother with an expensively ill child, so life was challenging for her. She lived on in this manner until she was about 23 years old.
During these years there was extensive exploration of and a land rush of sorts upon the lands at the top and bottom of the world. The land masses of the farthest north, though very cold and not suited for agriculture or even habitation by most measures, were known and/or suspected of being rich in metals and minerals, and not all the lands were officially claimed by far. There was also still interest in the possibilities of some sort of north-west passage that could greatly shorten shipping routes between one side of North America and the other. As things sat, a maritime trip from New York City to Seattle involved passing beneath South America and that added a very great amount of time to a voyage, increasing prices, spoilage, and even the chance of losing everything due to ship wreck.
Also, some northern land masses, by location, were seen as having possible military advantages. So various nations and entities had an interest in establishing the first permanent settlements, an internationally acknowledged land claim of sorts, on these far northern islands above Alaska and Russia on the maps of the polar seas. One such location was Wrangell Island, which was north of and somewhat between Russia and Alaska, but to be accurate, more directly north of far Eastern Russia. In truth, its location suits it much more naturally to be a Russian holding, and so a politically preoccupied Russia essentially considered it theirs by proximity though they had developed nothing there to solidify their claim. Yet many in the world still viewed it as one of these officially unclaimed lands whose ownership was technically up for grabs. It was approximately 93 miles east/west by 50 miles north/south...fairly large! And no nation had made a widely recognized territorial claim upon it yet in the early 1920's. Some political and commercial concerns of the time recognized that it had potential both because of its location and its possible resource reserves. So someone needed to be first to establish a permanent or semi-permanent settlement upon it and plant their nation's flag there if it was to become someone's official national holding, respected as such by the various nations.
Wrangell Island is near to Alaska, shown on the right, but nearer to Siberian Russia, seen on the left. Note the location of Nome, Alaska.
A satellite view of Wrangell Island when just about socked in for the winter. Wrangell is the landmass you see in center right. It is about 90 miles to Siberia, the land seen to the south.
Wrangell Island In the Warm Season
A certain celebrated arctic explorer and expedition organizer named Vilhjamur Stefansson saw Wrangell Island's potential clearly. He had already been involved in a Wrangell Island expedition a few years earlier which had turned into a deadly and embarrassing debacle resulting in a ship frozen in the ice and ultimately in the death of 11 men of the expedition, some dying on Wrangell Island itself. But as with many high performing, ambitious, status seeking self promoters he was convinced that it was no real fault of his own. In such challenging exploits as a polar region exploration danger was unavoidable he felt, though many other explorers who were his contemporaries saw planning problems and poor decisions as the main causes of that particular disaster, and publicly accused him of such.
Never the less, Vilhjamur Stefansson felt that the arctic areas were rich with food and most of the necessary resources for living...you merely needed some survival know-how, be versed in how to trap, to fish, how to camouflage yourself and to have knowledge of the various land and marine animals' habits. And though he did not plan to personally attend the next Wrangell Island expedition he intended to send some experienced North Americans of European descent and some arctic-savvy Eskimos on this next endeavor, and it would be a great success he felt. He would remotely use the expedition to establish a low key presence composed of buildings, tents, and year round occupants in order to lay claim to Wrangell. Oddly, neither Canada nor Britain was very interested in his expedition, so he had been forced to arrange funding privately and from commercial interests. Vilhjamar himself made his living largely by giving well attended lectures throughout the US and Canada about expeditions to, and life in, the arctic. It was a subject of great public interest in the early 1920's!
For this second Wrangell expedition he first got together a group of four core expedition members that might be categorized as Euro-American, two of them well experienced in polar exploration and survival, and two who were young adventurous rookies wanting to become so. All were eager for a life adventure and committed to bringing Britain the ownership of some new real estate while perhaps becoming somewhat famous themselves in the process.
There were three Americans: Lorne Knight and Fred Maurer were 28 years old, and Milton Galle was youngest of them all at 19. And the fourth, who was to be the expedition leader, would be a 20 year old Canadian named Allan Crawford. Vilhjamar developed a plan for building an occupied station on Wrangell Island in order to explore, study and survey it, and in order to stake Britain's national claim upon it. The effort would be somewhat unpublicized before hand, to prevent competing nations from trying to accomplish it first.
A ship would be obtained to take them from Nome, drop them onto the island with the needed supplies of food, building materials, tools, weapons, and scientific instruments. They would also as envisioned take a small contingent of Eskimo natives who would help with everything, but especially with hunting and fishing and their famous cultural know-how for dealing with the freezing climate. And there would be some Eskimo women brought along to sew warm Eskimo style clothing, gloves, and parkas for them from arctic animals that they harvested, largely polar bear, seal, and fox. And such was their plan...very little of which went as planned!
Ada first heard about the expedition from the Sheriff of Nome with whom she was acquainted. He knew of her financial needs. The expedition was seeking Eskimo men and women for the sake of their arctic savvy, he told her. They would pay $50.00 a month to Ada if she signed on; this far exceeded what she was making, and opened the door for getting her son back. It would last an entire year though, a long time! Worse yet, she was deathly afraid of polar bears...she always had been. But there would be men and guns.
After considering the matter she applied and was accepted! It shouldn't be too bad, she reasoned, as there would be other Innuit people going, both men and women, that she should have much in common with.
Before she left she consulted a native shaman priest...an un-Christian practice...but she had fallen away some. It was a thing that local Innuit sometimes did. He told her a strange thing: there was danger ahead, and even death! Beware of knives and of fire he told her. She walked away from that consultation curious and somewhat concerned.
They would take some processed food, about 6 months worth, but live largely off of the land their expedition organizer assured them, because the arctic is brimming with food...foxes, hares, seals, musk ox, walrus, bears, fish and birds of several types...you merely needed to know when, where, and how to hunt each creature he confidently assured the group. For the trained and experienced man the arctic was a bountiful provider, he assured them, though the natives knew the truths of the arctic far more than the core expedition leadership. Vilhjamur explained in letters how he himself would not be going on the expedition as he had some money raising to do. But they would be dropped off on Wrangell, build a fairly permanent camp and station, and after a year a ship would come with new replacement personnel and the old expedition personnel would return home. It sounded pretty easy, really. And it sounded well planned out the way Vilhjamar described it all. The team was eager to begin, though Ada was going only for the much needed money. She had no thirst for arctic adventure by her own admission.
But once in Nome their departure was delayed. Slow arrival of supplies, problems procuring the ship, and this sort of thing. Their originally procured vessel developed problems. It was actually early fall, September, when they were finally ready to leave port. Except...then the Eskimos took council with each other about the risky lateness of their departure and did not like the situation. Fall was no time to leave for a harsh and barren arctic island they felt. Not sensible. They decided they were not going...both the men and their women! This left Ada with a very hard choice: she needed the money, but now she would be the only woman and the only Native as well. Finally, needing the funds and feeling bad for these men who would have no one to cook and sew for them, she decided to go ahead. Besides, they made contingency plans to stop on the Russian coast and try to convince some Innuits from there to enlist. But, as it turned out, when they tried, they failed. Ada felt herself to be in a separate category and among strangers.
The Wrangell Island Expedition crew, with cat Victoria on the lap of the man on the lower right. Ada surrounded by Allan Crawford, Lorne Night, Fred Maurer and Miton Galle holding Victoria the cat. Ada, by the way, had a curious mind and she learned to use the expedition type writer and expedition camera, and she took a good number of pictures, even when all alone. Selfies!
And so it came to be that the five of them were dropped off on cold, desolate, icy, and wind swept Wrangell Island all alone except for a female house cat named Victoria (Vic) as their mascot. It was already September 15th, 1921....far, far later than hoped and planned due to the various delays. The ship which had brought them departed to get back to Nome before the ice formed on the ocean, and the cold weather was already descending. But the men were fresh and strong and eager, and soon they had set up their camp...enough of a camp to begin assembling better stronger structures. After a few days they decided that unfortunately the first location they had chosen was too exposed to roaming bears scavenging the coast line and too far from water and too close to the seaside weather, and that it had various other disadvantages as well. They chose a new location back inland several hundred yards and moved their camp, but this ate up some of the last of the good-weather days. Ominously, some of the food-stock animals their planning had relied upon were already vacating the area for warmer climes. So they obtained far less fresh meat to live on through the winter than they had envisioned. And they were not such good hunters as the Innuit men would likely have been. The wild game seemed to mostly spot them coming from far away, out of rifle range. And the animal traps they set out were producing almost nothing; they traveled for miles, burning energy, to check the predictably empty traps.
The physical appearance of the final Wrangell Island Expedition camp, showing freight containers and living and storage structures.
It was looking like it would be a very difficult and potentially hungry winter. They'd arrived too late to stock up much from nature's bounty. They gathered as much driftwood as they could for cooking and heat and brought it to their several newly erected buildings and tents. But the full fierceness of winter was then swiftly upon them. It would be mostly foxes, bears, and seals...if anything...from then until Spring. The easier fishing and bird hunting period of the year had been missed. Though they would hunt and trap as well as possible they would have to mostly use up their store-bought provisions to survive.
Ada did not really have to hunt or build. Her role had been pretty well defined when they offered her a place; she was mainly to cook, help tend the fire and sew furs into clothing and she could largely remain inside the several shelters. This suited her as there were polar bears and she was very, very afraid of them. (Wrangell Island reportedly has the arctic's highest density of polar bear dens!) But, Ada was the only woman and the only Innuit on the team. Her situation was alien and somewhat frightening and she began to become emotionally overcome by it all. In fact, as the weeks passed she became exceptionally lonely, started to become withdrawn and moody and weepy and to do ever less cooking and sewing.
In her isolation and anxiety she quickly developed a terrible crush on the Canadian man named Allan Crawford to the point that it was completely obvious to all, but though he treated her decently he had no romantic interest in her no matter how ardently she wanted to be married to him. And yes, she made it plain that she wanted to be married to him, and it became a joking matter among the men. They actually treated her well and respectfully concerning her being a female, though. She later openly attested that they treated her well respecting her gender.
But at first her depression only worsened until they became ridiculous, even epic. She cried and moped around, did little of her expected work and at times even seemed to want to harm herself because she so desperately missed Nome and home. The men were indulgent and fairly understanding toward her at first, except for Knight who referred to her depressions quite derisively at numerous times, but her behavior became so untenable that they all started mentioning it sometimes, treating her with some strictness. And they even took the extreme step of tying her up at one point to prevent her from possibly committing suicide by walking away into the blinding snowstorms to end it all. She spoke about doing so. She truly was a mess. She came to feel that no one wanted her around and they were sorry that she had come. And this was briefly the truth during certain periods that first winter. Ada lost control of herself out there in that strange new world which she had been very hesitant to come to in the first place. She had a great spirit within her, but she was being battle hardened for the first time in the harshest of places and she had some stumbles. Most of us might have!
But something changed within her as she sometimes gave more mature personal consideration to the way her feelings were causing her to act. She began to register and fully grasp the realities of their situation and her impact upon it. She was being a problem for everyone, and they really did need her skills and contributions.
Rallying herself, Ada began to more fully dedicate her time to the expedition's betterment by attending to the sewing and cooking. Bit by bit, her depression broke. She started to talk more and to become friends with the men, especially the youngest man who was barely past boyhood. They laughed and shared growing up stories. He too was missing home. And the situation got much better. They largely seemed to have forgiven her except that Knight behaved in what she felt was an obviously unfriendly manner and referred to her mostly as "the woman". She could see that he now had a very low opinion of her and that he wasn't making any real effort to hide the fact.
They did what they could to stretch out their food reserves and survive the days until the next ship came in the Summer and replaced them with the new crew. They did some exploration and research, conducted some scientific study and continued trying to hunt and trap. But they were not very successful at feeding themselves. The days passed, and Spring came slowly creeping into the landscape, and one day it was clear that they had reached the good weather days. The sun and what passed for warmth had returned to the top of the world and the sea ice was breaking up. Birds returned, laying their eggs and fishing was once more possible. They all perked up and worked at restoring their health and their situation and were all cheered at the thought of the resupply ship coming to return them to their homes. They did not know when it would come exactly. But they knew arrangements were made.
Meanwhile, on the civilized side of the world, nothing was going right. Vilhjumar was having trouble with funding, having problems lining up expedition personnel, and was having trouble arranging logistics. Everything seemed to go against his plans as he tried to arrange things from afar. Finally, when it seemed the replenishment ship was about ready, the winter ice closed in early that year and through a series of debacles the replenishment/rescue ship could not push through to them. It had to turn back to ensure the survival of the ship and crew. The various options had eluded them one by one until it was suddenly too late for the relief and replenishment voyage to happen that year.
On Wrangell Island the Summer came and passed quickly. They knew their roles now and the ship was coming, so though they were still not especially proficient at obtaining local food the group morale was fair. But ever more often their eyes searched the sea and then the cold days of Fall came. Coffee and sugar and tea and medicines and all of the things that Wrangell Island could not provide were either long gone or almost used up. And the staple food supplies they had initially brought from Nome were essentially gone. Then, almost of a sudden, it became quite clear to them all that the sea was icing up again and a resupply ship was not coming. They would be spending a second Winter on the island and they were not truly prepared for it. They had not gathered food with a vengeance as they would have had they but known they'd spend a second year. After all, the ship they had hoped for would have had a lot of canned foods, etc.
They had made a big mistake! Terribly low on food they faced the grim prospect of a second winter on Wrangell. Another brutally cold winter. Talk became grim. They were all reduced in strength and vitality by the day to day struggles of polar life. They were vitamin depleted. They had not eaten nearly enough fruits or vegetables for a long time. And they were low on fresh meat, a primary source of vitamin C in arctic regions. They began to suffer from the dreaded vitamin C deficiency disease called 'Scurvy' which effects the vision, the mood, your strength, and causes your gums to bleed, your teeth to first become loose and then eventually fall out. Later, Scurvy even kills you. They struggled from Fall to Winter and the situation grew very desperate.
Knight was so ill from Scurvy and other possible conditions that he was sick in bed, complaining and in discomfort and the others were not so far behind. In January the men conferred and were convinced that they would not make it until Spring. They formed an urgent and dangerous plan; they would cross over the sea ice almost 90 miles to mainland Russia and then look for any sort of settlement or village. They would locate help and supplies and then return. But they could not all go. Knight was too sick to move and so the men decided Ada would have to stay and nurse him and keep him alive until they returned. Ada did not like the plan, but she saw that it was necessary. She did not want to be left alone with Knight because he did not like her and said cruel things. But again, she saw that he was in need.
The able-bodied men bid her and Knight goodbye for a while and departed into the howling Winter weather on a difficult mission, and she was left alone with her apparent enemy, the cat, and a Bible (Knight allowed her to use his Bible. In fact he eventually officially gave it to her, even inscribing it to her on the inside of the cover. He could be good to her at times, and his own diary, later recovered, actually spoke kindly of her in some passages, especially of how she nursed him through his sickness)...and life for Ada suddenly seemed pretty frightening. Very soon the men unexpectedly were back. They had immediately hit a storm so intense they had decided to just return and regroup. After a day or two of warming back up and restoring their resolve, they left again for Russia but at a slightly different angle southward.
The worst part of Winter remained, and supplies were low. Ada began to sometimes use a typewriter that belonged to one of the men, instead of just her notebook, to keep a journal of what she did each day. She thought that if the worst happened then someone would one day find their camp and read her journal and her typing and tell her boy what had happened and how hard she had tried for him. This, her prayers to Jesus, and her reading of the Bible each day became her hope and her comfort.
Knight steadily declined and could be almost no help at all at times. He was bedridden, in great discomfort and of course worried for his life. And Ada was the only human soul he could take out frustrations upon. Nothing she did was good enough, and all that she did to comfort him or provide for his needs seldom pleased him. Ada's diary reflected that some days were better than others, but on the bad days he could be flat out cruel to her. He went so far as to purposefully say tremendously hurtful things such as that 'he could see why she had no husband' and 'he could see why she wasn't allowed to be with her children'. And he said such hurtful things to HER...his only companion and nurse! She was doing everything from feeding him to giving him water to taking out his night bowl and cleaning him up after body functions. Taking care of Knight often seemed like a cruel enslavement, but she reminded herself over and over, her diaries showed, that Jesus wanted her to love her enemies. The cat and the Bible were almost her only consolation during this long lean 2nd Winter. Here follows a March 1923 entry in Ada's diary about how Knight had made her feel that day:
She had received a small amount of gun use training from the men, yet truly did not know how to shoot well and did not know how to hunt or trap. But if they were going to survive they she need to know how to shoot and hunt and trap! And so she began to teach herself. There was enough ammunition that she could practice on targets that she set out. At first the gun terrified her, yet after a time she could use it but seemed to hit nothing she aimed at. Then, after a while longer and more practice she began to be able to hit the targets more regularly.
She commenced making it her regular habit to march out of camp and set traps for foxes, keeping her eyes out for seals as well, and for the dreaded polar bears. They had shot a polar bear since coming to Wrangell Island, which had a great many. Their pelts were large and warm and their meat was in the hundreds of pounds and edible, though not truly tasty. Their livers were actually so concentrated with vitamin A that polar bear liver was deadly poisonous to humans. Natives had known since ancient times to eat the flesh if you needed, but never the liver. But Ada herself never had killed one and she was still terrified of them. She inevitably caught sight of them on certain days when she was out hunting and trapping. She always turned away from them and headed back to the camp. Even with a rifle she wanted no part of them.
She seldom ever caught the much needed foxes, and seal were rare and hard to sneak up on and shoot. They would lay right by their holes in the ice, so if your bullet didn't kill them instantly they would dive and be gone. She got near to a seal one day and fired, killing it instantly. She was so excited! But looking up while butchering it she saw a polar bear coming towards her swiftly from a distance. She saw she had no chance at all to flee to camp before it overtook her, but she turned and ran. She was 5 feet tall and about 100 pounds and wouldn't have even made an especially big meal for the bear. She felt herself flood with relief when she looked back and saw the bear had stopped at her seal. She surrendered it gratefully in her mind. At least the bear wasn't eating her!
She spent more time trying for the foxes after that, and less time down by the frozen ocean looking for seals. The bears tended to travel up and down the beaches, more so than in the low hills above where the best fox trapping was. She began learning how to trap more effectively. As the weeks of the second Winter passed she began to get a fox from time to time. They were not too large, but they tasted pretty good and their furs were useful. They were keeping Knight and herself alive...sort of. Spring came finally and then Summer. Finding food became easier and having some sunlight helped, but Knight did not seem to improve.
Actually Knight was dying no matter what she did. He just kept declining. He had begun to berate her far less...he even let her know he depended on her and appreciated her a couple of times. But he became ever less talkative and slept more and seemed less interested in eating. And then it happened. Even with how he acted towards her she did not want to be alone. She prayed much for his recovery or the arrival of rescuers. But it was not to happen and she found him deceased one morning on June 23rd of 1923, no longer in pain. She wrapped his body up and moved it over to the wall, and then she barricaded it all around with stacked crates and boxes so she would not have to see it. But it began to smell bad so she moved herself out of the plank building and into a nearby tent. She was afraid the bears would smell it and come, but the building walls might protect it. And she was afraid that if she left the body outside it would be even easier for the bears to smell. Polar bears have a superlative sense of scent...something she would likely have heard about all of her life.
In the outside world the families of the Wrangell Island expedition members had created as mighty of a stir as they could about the fate of the expedition. Its organizer was receiving criticism from many quarters and was blaming everyone and everything else but his own planning. And he was emphasizing that they were probably OK and awaiting a ship to arrive for them. He often reiterated his theory that the Arctic was a generous provider for those skilled in living there, so there should be no reason they couldn't survive. There was speculation even that a foreign nation might have attacked their camp to prevent their land claim upon the island from bearing fruit. Speculations abounded. Newspapers across the nation and world were carrying updates on planned rescues and interviews with the worried and waiting families. It had become a closely followed story.
Ada thought of herself as ever so greatly dependent upon the mercy and provision of Jesus as the days went by. She thanked Jesus that she had survived another day on almost all of the days she wrote in her journal. She wrote of spending the bad weather days, when she couldn't go out, praying and reading scripture. She wrote of missing going to church and taking part in church singing. She found herself often wishing that Knight was still alive because at least she was not alone then. She had the cat, Vic, for company...it remained curiously healthy despite everything. One day at a time Ada faced the days and kept up a diary of her efforts. She hoped the men had reached Russia and found help, but more and more she doubted.
Winter had waned into Spring, then Summer and the polar sun rose again, the days were tremendously long and the migratory animals returned. There were birds and eggs to eat again. The ice was broken she observed, and that was a good sign. She was not well provisioned, but not starving. She persevered. And then one day, Aug 20 of 1923, the weather was clear and the morning sun rose...a nice morning! It made her very happy, and she went outside to glory in it; it was a great encouragement. And as she viewed the pale distant beach and ocean...she saw a ship. She would soon learn that it was a ship named the Donaldson, and aboard it a man named Harold Noice was the search leader sent by the expedition leader. She thrilled inside, and clothing herself for a walk to the ocean shore she went out and stood on the beach where they would be sure to see her. And they did! The ship anchored. A small boat was let down, and men rowed to shore to meet her. Rescuers! Jesus would let her return to her son!!
They were sent to find and rescue the now famous lost expedition and they were excited to have succeeded. But then came additional amazement because this young emotionally overcome but relatively healthy Innuit woman was telling them in quite good English that she believed the others might all be dead. They marveled at it all and at her survival and accompanied her to the expedition camp where she showed them Knight's body, the diaries, and she talked with them of all that had happened while they walked around and looked.
Above, Ada in a photo that is disputed but is almost certainly taken on the Donaldson on the way home from Wrangell. She appears comfortable with a gun, which she wasn't on her way to Wrangell. She has on a new 'fancy parky' as she described it...her diary records she finished sewing one completely together for herself only days before her rescue. Her skin is looking a little wind chapped like the outdoors woman she became on Wrangell. And she looks pretty happy! So, probably a rescue photo!
Soon, cat in hand, she was aboard and heading for home, her son, and unfortunately a very cruel situation as Vilhjamur, but more so Noice, tried every trick in the book to blacken Ada's name. They did not wish poor planning to be thought the cause of the deaths. Noice was actually associated with Vilhjamur and felt a misplaced loyalty to protect Vilhjamur's name and reputation. There were even insinuations in the earliest days that Ada might have survived by cannibalism. The diaries, some belonging to the expedition men as well as Ada, were initially confiscated by Noice and withheld from the press. What should have been a wonderful homecoming was a time of insane cruelty by some towards Ada. And she was so shy that she told her story only to a few.
But things began to work out for Ada. The diaries made it to the public somehow, and all of them, hers and those of the other expedition members, confirmed Ada's account of the expedition's experiences. More and more of those who did manage to get her to talk reported her to be sweet, honest, shy, humble, and quite believable. Ada was even invited to travel to the lower 48 and stay for a bit at the family home of one of the men who was lost and still unaccounted for. They were curious about Ada, and missed their son horribly, wanting some sort of closure. Ada's simple goodness and obviously honest nature won them over, and she had good memories to relate of the final days she could speak about of their son's life before he left for Siberia to seek rescuers. Vilhjamur never really took responsibility for very much of what had gone wrong, nor did he apologize much to Ada. In fact, she never received all of the pay due to her. But he eventually acknowledged that she had conducted herself well. Public opinion turned almost fully in Ada's favor as time passed.
Ada took what money she did receive and moved to Seattle to be by her son. The money was at least enough to allow for his treatment. Bennett grew to be a man, lived to be 58 years old in fact, dying about 11 years before Ada. She was very poor for the rest of her life. She was famous for a while...even her face was well known from pictures. But it never translated to wealth. She married again and had one other son. Her first son got somewhat better but was never fully healthy. Then Ada divorced, married again, and divorced that time also! Marriage was apparently not one of her lucky areas. Ada was so poor that her children were once again taken from her because of her poverty yet again at one point, for 9 years! But she eventually got them back and they lived together as a family.
Ada always attributed her survival to Jesus and was grateful to Him for all of her life. One person wrote of her attending a small house church which that writer also went to, never missing a Sunday, when Ada was an old woman. She died at age 85, in 1983, in a state retirement home in Palmer, Alaska. She is buried in Anchorage, Alaska. The story of Ada surviving by dependence on Jesus when the famous Arctic experts were all lost struck a chord with readers in the USA, Canada, Great Britain, and certain other nations...it was a wonderful testimony of Jesus' love. His strength was made perfect through her weakness. She profited almost not at all from her fame, which she detested, and virtually disappeared for much of her later life. Many of the people who knew her in her last decades never even knew of her amazing experience on Wrangell Island, sources say. She was a tough but humble woman, shy and tender, but truly brave. One of her last interviewers relates that it was with great difficulty that she finally even located Ada's residence in her old age. She was an old woman working outside her residence, and she reportedly did not seem very pleased to learn the journalist was seeking her.
But she had quite a story to tell, and she always praised Jesus when she shared it.
***The fate of the 3 expedition members who attempted to cross over to Siberia for supplies and rescue is unknown even to this day. Perhaps they fell through the ice, perhaps they froze on the sea ice and snow, perhaps they made it to Siberia and died there from the cold, or perhaps they were jailed, even killed in Siberia for political reasons. Again, no one seems to know though investigations have been conducted.***