Marooned in the Arctic: The True Story of Ada Blackjack, the "Female Robinson Crusoe."

Gr 7 Up—Caravantes provides an account of the ill-fated 1921 Wrangel Island expedition (in which explorers were sent to claim the land for Canada), relying mostly on the notes and journals of Milton Galle, Lorne Knight, Allan Crawford, and Frederick Maurer. Ada Blackjack Johnson accompanied the men, acting as their cook and seamstress to earn money to care for her sick son. Although Johnson is supposed to be the focus of the book, most information on her is from secondary sources, and the few entries from her diary featured are brief and factual. The narrative covers why Vilhjalmur Stefansson sent the expedition to the island and the party's exploration and fight for survival. Johnson is mentioned briefly, with the men stating whether she is acting as expected, behaving strangely, or refusing to work. Their treatment of her was questionable: on one occasion, they tied her to the flagpole for not working. After Johnson's rescue, she was briefly covered in the press but spent the rest of her life in relative obscurity and poverty. Although the author explains why she used the term Eskimo rather than Inuit, she glosses over other issues, such as the flagpole incident, never questioning if the men treated Johnson differently because she wasn't white. Black-and-white photographs, along with diary and newspaper excerpts, are included. Gray boxes of text provide in-depth information on topics.