ESKIMO HEROINE

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1923, Page 7

ESKIMO HEROINE

ALONE IN THE ARCTIC. The Arctic has added many illustrious names to the scroll of the great, but most of these have been men, wrote Harold Noice to thb “Manchester Guardian,” from Nome (Alaska), a few weeks ago. To that long list must now be added the quaint name of Ada Blackjack, the Eskimo girl, who, although brought up in the town of Nome, familiar with electric lights and comforts of a modern city, nevertheless managed to live by her own efforts on an unin-habited-'Arctic Island and at the same time provide food for herself and a dying companion whom she nursed, for six months. After his death she lived there alone, in terror of prowling polar bears, but determined to fight to the end and to endure another winter upon the forsaken isle if necessary. Ada had never fired a shot in her life nor had she ever set a trap, yet she learned to do both and truimph where many strong men in the past have failed. Her .story as she told it to me that morning in the cabin of the Donaldson surpasses anything I have ever come across in the North.. Nor have I ever read of anything that quite equals it. Only thet night before we rescued her she dreamt she heard the whistle of a boat, and. when ahe heard our whistle that morning as she cooked her meagre breakfast of tea, dried duck, and seal oil she could hardly believe she was not dreaming. The fog, too, added to the unreality. Often as she-sat in my cabin telling me her story she would look up quickly and say: “I wonder if this is only a dream. I can hardly believe that you have come.” When the little party found that they would not have food to last them through the winter, an attempt to reach Siberia was determined upon.

Ada made new clothing for the men and did her utmost to send them away as completely equipped as she could. Knight, who was already developing symptoms of scurvy, was to remain with Ada, while Crawford, Maurer and Galle were to make the attempt. I At first Knight was able to get about a bit, but one day while chopping wood he fainted, and thereafter did not leave his tent. It was not long until he took to his sleeping bag for good, and from then on to the end little Ada was his. untiring nurse. Knight knew, and so did she, that his only hope lay in securing fresh meat for food. He had been cured of scurvy once by Stefansson, who put him and me on a diet of raw caribou steaks when we both were down with the disease on one of the explorer’s sledge journeys 5n the Far North. So Ada set out to trap foxes. She learned how to set traps and cover them over with thin blocks of snow so that the foxes would not see them. Day after day she would visit her traps and carry home the catch, but Knight’s condition rapidly became worse and she had to spend much time in attending him. Thus she was not able to go very far from the camp, and consequently caught few foxes. Gradually the long winter passed, the ice broke up, and the snow left’the land. The birds returned from the south in all their millions, and other game became plentiful. The day which Ada and Knight had been looking forward to with longing arrived, but alas! poor Knight was too far gone. He became too weak for any food but broth. Still Ada hoped, but jolly, big-hearted Knight passed out on June 22, and Ada was left alone except for a kitten, now grown to a cat which the boys had brought with them from Nome. The poor little girl had a hard time, both physically and mentally, all by i , 1 • 1 1 UT„..

herself on that lonely island. Her slender store of provisions had dwindled nearly away, and she who had never fired a gun in her life now took down a big 35-40 calibre rifle, set up a target 40 yards distant, and began daily shooting practice, and day after day she tramped the hills in search of

game. One day she encountered two polar bears, but feared to try a shot for fear of merely wounding one of them, in which case she knew they would probably kill her. She fired over their heads, and they scrambled out of sight. Another time in the spring, after the seals had come out upon the ice, she crawled forward very patiently and carefully up to where a seal was sunning itself. Then using a little wooden rest she had made for her gun barrel, she took careful aim and fired. The bullet found its mark and the seal died without a quiver. But seals always lie very near their breathing-holes or. near the edge of the ice, and even though dead they frequently slide into the water before the hunter can reach them. Ada, therefore, immediately she fired had thrown aside her rifle and had raced as fast as she could over the uneven surface of the ice towards the seal, which was even then beginning to slip toward the floe’s edge. As she grasped the seal by its flipper 1 she sensed a presence near her, and, glancing hack over her shoulder, saw a great polar hear which had evidently been stalking her as she stalked the seal. Adi raced for her tent. . . . When we rescued her she was working upon a net with which she hoped to catch seals. She had also made a small canvas boat scarcely larger than herself with which to paddle to the ducks that she shot in nearby waters. When we arrived she had but twelve pounds of mouldy pilot bread, which she wa.s saving for next winter, when she knew she would not be able to do much hunting. The world has a curious habit of looking upon Eskimos as a race inured by nature to all sorts of hardships and capable of sustaining hunger indefinitely, but after living among them for six years I can truthfully say they are as human as anyone else. They feel the cold as we do. Their bodies require as much nourishment as do they value companionship. I greatly ours. And perhaps more than we do fear, however, that this tale of stoic heroism and lonely fortitude will fail of any great appreciation, because its heroine is but a poor Eskimo girl. The failure of the party seems to have been due more to the inexperience of the members than to the innate inhospitality of the country. The boys worked hard to get seals, but seal-

hunting is not learned in one season Crawford and Gale had never worked in the ice pack before. They did their best, but not many seals were added to the food supply by their efforts. Knight had a number of years’ experience in Um North, but was always accompanied by Eskimo hunters or white men expert in Northern hunting. He apparently never learned the secret of successful seal hunting, for in his diary he declares that he never could understand why seals would go down into their holes whenever they saw him approaching. Boor old Knight!’This to me is one of the most tragic, statements in his whole story, for every seal hunter knows that lhe most, important point, in seal hunting is Io avoid being seen. There were also numerous herds of

walrus, but in hunting them a umiak or skin boat is essential. It is light and can be hauled out of the water, dragged across the intervening iceflows, and relaunched on the other side, but the big 700-pounder Dory they had was practically useless for the purpose. They lost the meat of the only two walrus they got in trying to haul the Dory out of the water in order to cross a cake of ice between where they made the kill and the shore. I have left thirteen Eskimos and a white man on the island to continue the colony. They have .food for two years and ammunition for three years.