Blackjack, Ada, 1898-1983

Ada Blackjack was born on May 10, 1898 in Solomon, Alaska. She moved to Nome, Alaska where she married and had three children of which only one survived. Left destitute by her husband, she joined the Wrangle Island Expedition of 1921 which was financed by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. After a grueling two years on the island she was the only survivor of the expedition when she was rescued in 1923. She eventually returned to the Arctic where she lived until her death in 1983 at the age of 85.

<p>Ada Delutuk Blackjack was born in 1898 in the Iñupiat village of Spruce Creek, in what was then known as the District of Alaska. Her mother sent her to Nome when she was eight years old. There, Methodist missionaries taught her to read, write, and sew. She married at sixteen, but within five years her husband had abandoned her and their surviving child, a son named Bennett. Far from home and without money, she was forced to place Bennett in an orphanage and found work as a seamstress.

<p>In 1921, in an ill-fated attempt to settle Wrangel Island (in the Chukchi Sea north of Siberia) and establish a territorial claim, Vilhjalmur Stefansson recruited four men -- Allan Crawford, Milton Galle, Lorne Knight, and Fred Maurer -- to settle on the island and hunt game. While outfitting the expedition in Nome, the team hired Ada Blackjack, a woman whose ancestors had lived in area homelands since time immemorial. After an expected relief ship failed to appear late the following year, Crawford, Galle, and Maurer set out in January 1923 to walk over the pack ice to Siberia. They were not heard from again. Knight, suffering from scurvy, remained behind with Blackjack; he died on June 23, 1923. Left with the expedition’s cat, Vic, Blackjack survived alone until the arrival of Harold Noice and the crew of the Donaldson, on August 20, 1923.

The most significant Stefansson-related correspondence reflects the Wrangel Island fiasco and the involvement of the sole survivor, Ada Blackjack, who also corresponded with Mrs.Fletcher (1924-1925). Fletcher's correspondence beginning in 1924 reflects her arrangement, both by herself and with Alice Seckels of San Francisco, of lectures and debates for Stefansson, Louis I. Newman, Prince William of Sweden, John Noel, Hubert Wilkins, Maurice Hindus, Lowell Thomas, Judge Ben Lindsey, and others. Correspondents include: Carl Ethan Akeley, who mentions his sculptures and travel plans (May 1924; Aug. 1925; Nov. 1925); Ruth Bryan Owen, who outlines her lecture activities (June 1925); Rodney C. Wood, who discusses his collaboration with Mrs. Fletcher on writings about Africa, his intention to guide her on her visit to Nyasaland, and aspects of life in Nyasaland and the Seychelles (1924-1928); Louis J. Alber, the manager of Prince William's lectures (1927); John B. L. Noel (Nov. 1927); Maurice Hindus (Jan. 1928); Lowell Thomas (Mar. [1928?]); and Princess Achille Murat ([Aug. 1928]).

Ada Blackjack (née Delutuk; 1898 – May 29, 1983) was an Iñupiat woman who lived for two years as a castaway on the uninhabited Wrangel Island, north of Siberia.