Ada Blackjack was a small Inupiaq woman born in an Alaskan settlement in 1898. History has not said much about her. But when we remember her, it’s usually in comparison to white men. The “female Robinson Crusoe,” as her rescuers called her. “An unlikely Arctic heroine,” others have said. Blackjack’s nephew described her without drawing such parallels: “Her story truly speaks of the will and spirit to survive against all odds.” She was educated by Methodist missionaries who taught her to cook and sew. As a single mother, Blackjack tried…
