ESKIMO GIRL HEROINE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17218, 8 December 1923, Page 5 (Supplement)

ESKIMO GIRL 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 the “Manchester Guardian,” from Nome (Alaska) a few weeks ago. To that long list must nor/ bo added tho 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 a uninhabited Arctic island and at tho same time provide food for herself and a dying companion whom all© nursed for six months, After his death she lived there alone, in terror of prowling polar beam, but determined to fight to the end and endure another winter upon the forsaken iale 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 triumph where many strong men in the past have failed. Her story, as she told it to me that morning in the cabin of tho Donaldson, surpasses anything I have ever come across in the North.. Nor have I ever of anything that quit© equals it. Only the night before we rescued her she dreamt she heard the whistle of a boat, and when she 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.” AN ATTEMPT TO P.EACH SIBERIA. "When tho little party found that they would not have food to last them through the winter, an attempt to reach Siberia determined upon | Ada mad© new clothing for the men and did her utmost to send them awqy equipped as sh© could. Knight, who was already developing signs of scurvy, was to remain with Ada, while Crawford, Maurer, and Galle were to make the attempt. At first Knight was able to get about a bit, but ono day while chopping wood he fainted, and thereafter did not louve his tent. It was not long until ho took - to his sleeping bag for good, and from then on to the end little Ad& 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 on a diet of raw caribou steaks when we both were down with the disease on one of the explorer’s sledge journeys in the Far jNorfch. So Ada set out to trap foxes. She learned how to set traps and cover them with thin blocks 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, ant' she had to spend much tim© in attendin 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 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 behme 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 tho boys bad brought with them from Nome.

AN ENCOUNTER WITH BEARS. The poor little girl had a hard time, both physically and mentally, all by herself on that lonely island. Her slender storo of provisions had dwindled nearly away, and she who had never fired a gun in her life now took down a big 30-40 calibre rifle, eet tip a targot forty yards- distant, and began daily shooting practice, and day after day sh© tramped the hills in searoh 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 tho seals had oome out upon the ice, she crawled up to where a seal was sunning itself. Then using a little wooden rest sho had mad© 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 tjhey fre* quently slide into the water before tho hunter can reaeh them. Ada, therefore, immediately she fired had thrown aside her rifle and had raced as fast os she could over tho uneven surface of the ice towards the seal, which was even then beginning to slip towards the floe’s edge. As she grasped the seal by its flipper she sensed a presence near her, and glancing over her Shoulder, saw a great polar bear which had evidently been stalking her as sh 6 stalked the seal, Ada raced for her tent. When we rescued her she was working upon a net with which sh© hoped to catch seals. She had also made a small canvas boat searcelj* larger than herself, with which to paddla to the ducks that she shot in near-by waters. When w© arrived she had but twelve pound of mouldy pilot bread, which ehe was saving for next winter, when she knew she would not be able to do much hunting. STOIC HEROISM. ? The world has a curlou3 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 feol the cold as do. Tlieir bodies require as much nourishment as do ours. And perhaps more than we do they value companionship. I greatly fear, however, that this tale of stoic heroism and lonely fortitude will fail of any great appreciation, because its heroin© is ..but a poor Eskimo girl. The failure cf the party' seems to hav© been duo more to the inexperience of the members than to the innate inhospitality of the country. Th© boys worked hard to get seals, but sealhunting is not learned in one season. Crawford and Galle had never worked in th© ice pack before. They did their best, but not pi any seals were added to the food supply by their efforts. Knight bad of years’ experience in the North, but wa9 always accompanied by Eakimo 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. Poor old Knight ! This to me .is on© of the most tragic statements in his whole story, for every seal hunter knows that th© most important point in seal hunting is to pvoid being sq^n. There were also immense herds 02 wlarus, 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 icefloes' 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 tho shore. X hav© left thirteen Eskimos ar.d a whito mjm on the island to continue the colony/. They have food for two years and ammunition for three jtears.