New Found Interest

I just finished reading the story of Ada Blackjack and her companions on their failed journey into the Arctic. "In 1921, four men and one woman ventured deep into the Arctic. Two years later, only one returned.When 23-year-old Inuit Ada Blackjack signed on as a seamstress for a top-secret Arctic expedition, her goal was simple: earn money and find a husband. But her terrifying experiences — both in the wild and back in civilization — comprise one of the most amazing untold adventures of the 20th century. Based on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Ada's never-before-seen diaries, bestselling author Jennifer Niven narrates this true story of an unheralded woman who became an unlikely hero." While the story of what happened while they were living in the Arctic, and ultimately what happened to each person was very interesting, the author adds more to the story but tying in the families reaction to hearing the news of their son's deaths, and the political reasons that the men were told they were venturing north, followed by the fallout of who was to blame for the complete failure of the expedition, whether it was the man who had arranged it (Stefansson) or the boys themselves were just incompetent. I was amazed by the human spirit that it took  Blackjack to survive not just in the Arctic but the rest of her life as well.                        

Niven has another book, her first book, which was written about another Arctic expedition disaster. This book actually ties into the Blackjack book because one of the explorers, and the man that arranged the expedition in Blackjack's book were also on the mission that takes place in THE ICE MASTER."In June 1913, HMCS Karluk set sail from Victoria, British Columbia; less than six weeks later, the boat was trapped by ice and clearly would not move again until the spring thaw. Stefansson (no hero he) chose a dozen of the best sled dogs and set off "to go hunting," accompanied by his personal secretary, the expedition photographer, and an anthropologist. The ship's captain understood at once that "they had been abandoned." And only days after Stefansson's departure, "a fierce gale carried the ship deep into the heart of the Arctic Ocean." Niven's riveting, hair-raising account is all the more real because she has assembled this astonishing work from the journals kept by the abandoned scientists and crew. Niven's assiduous research and her unprecedented access to the last living survivor as well as to the descendants of other survivors, lend an immediacy and credibility to The Ice Master that are, in a word, extraordinary." I am excited to read this book next in order to understand how Stefansson and Mauer(one of the men exploring with Blackjack and also on the Karluk) came to be in the place they were in the beginning of Ada's story.