stefansson-wrangel-09-30-002

Appendix III - The Story of Ada Blackjack

A Statement Dictated in Seattle, Washington February 6, 1924 to E.R. Jordon, by Ada Blackjack. *

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about 3000 words

Stefansson sent an exploring party to Wrangell Island. They arrived in Nome, Alaska, September 1st, 1921, and were looking for a seamstress to take along with them. U. W. S. Marshall E.R. Jordon introduced me to Mr. Crawford, who was head of the Expedition. During their short stay in Nome, they chartered the boat Silver Wave. The Commander's name was Jack Hamar, who had spent many years in the arctic waters.

Before we left Nome I bought some sinew, needles, thimbles and some linen thread. We left Nome about September 9, 1921, and arrived at Wrangell Island September 16th, 1921. On our way to Wrangell Island we stopped on East Cape to get some sinew and white seal skin; we also bought a small Eskimo skin boat. *

* This was a boat smaller than an umiak. We know from a letter written|by Frederick Maurer to his wife that the boat was later lost by being washed overboard from the Silver Wave.

When we got to Wrangell Island the land looked very large to me, but they said that it was only a small island. I thought at first that I would turn back but I decided it wouldn't be fair to the boys. so I felt that I had to stay. Soon after we arrived I started to sew. on some snow shirts for the boys. We brought some reindeer skin coats and all I had to do was to fasten the hoods on to them, for it was very cold and the boys needed them to go about in.

They used to haul lots of wood to get wood piles for the winter. They made the frame for the snowhouse for winter and about the last part of October they put the snow blocks in. We were living in a tent at first and it was rather cold.

When spring came in 1922 we saw some geese and ducks; then we had some good meat. That spring the boys got over thirty seals and over ten polar bears. Not many of the skins could be used for the weather was so damp and we had no way to dry them, so only one or two were saved.

The summer 1922 Mr. Knight took a trip to the East of our camp, about sixty miles. On that trip he said he crossed a river called Skeleton River, which he had to swim across. He said it was quite a large river. After he came back the other three boys left to take the same trip. After his trip Mr. Knight was never well, complained of a sore back and said he felt weak. When Knight took the trip he took a dog along to carry his small things. While the other boys were away Mr. Knight killed a big polar bear, but we didn't touch the meat for we didn't care for it because we had ducks and geese and brant. After the boys

* In this statement Mr. Jordon has preserved the slightly foreign diction of the Eskimo [woman] (who had been brought up in an American mining town). We print this statement rather than her diary for it is more complete, without contradicting anything in the diary. She made dictated it before she or anyone knew that Mr. Noice was going to publish or otherwise make any accusations against her.

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came home, Maurer said he was going to fry some of the bear meat, but I never cared for it before, because it tasted strong, but in that summer of 1922 the bear meat tasted fine - it tasted just like beefsteak to me, for we had no meat for some time. Galle fried some of the polar bear blubber and got one barrel, one coal oil tin and one twenty-five pound lard tin full. This oil is very good.

Later on they killed another|polar bear, and oh! he was so fat. Then they saw some walrus out in the broken ice. They went out after them and|got two of them. They had a great deal of trouble getting the meat to shore. They couldn't get the boat up to where the meat was, so they took a sled and put the meat|on it and when they were crossing two ice cakes the sled got between the ice cakes and tipped over. They spilled all of the meat in the water but they saved some of it, but not all.

We were expecting a boat every day that summer (1922) because sometimes the ocean clears out so that the boats can come in. The ice goes out but comes in again. *

About the middle of November we moved xx up to the west of our present camp, about four miles I think, so they wouldn't have to haul the fire wood so far. After we arrived in our new camp I started to sew skins for the two boys, Knight and|Crawford, who were going to take a trip to Siberia. They were preparing the rest of their things and helping to haul wood so the other boys would|not have too much to do after they left.

At Christmas time we had some salt seal meat and some hard bread and tea for our Christmas dinner. That time when we had dinner I wondered where I would be if I lived until next Christmas. After Christmas, about January 8th, the boys, Knight and Crawford, left for Siberia. They came back about the 21st of January. They were only gone about thirteen days for Knight became sick and they had to turn back. When they got back Knight was very sick and weak. Then they talked about the other three boys taking the same trip to Siberia and Knight said|it would be better because the three boys could make a snowhouse easier at night than two boys could. So about January 28th the three boys, Crawford, Maurer and Galle, left for Siberia. They promised that they would come back after they got to Nome, with|a boat ship, and|if they couldn't get there with a boat ship they would come over with a dog team next winter. They left with a team of five dogs and a big sled of supplies.

After they left I started to do some trapping. After For about one week Knight seemed to be getting along all right. He could chop a little wood, but after a week he had to bring some wood in the tent to chop and while chopping it he fainted and was unconscious about five minutes. He was so weak that I told him he had better stay in bed, that I could chop the wood and bring in the snow for water. I told him I was used to chopping wood and doing that kind of work down home, x so he finally consented to let me.

* Here we leave out a paragraph about weather conditions, ice action, etc. The statement has been edited only by omissions of irrelevant material or by changing such Eskimo or arctic words into equivalent expressions comprehensible to the reader. There have been no additions or other alterations that change the meaning or general effect.

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I went out to Maurer’s trap line. Before he left he had given Mr. Knight his|trap line|map. When I went out the first day I only found about six or seven of the traps but later on, about three or four days|afterwards, I found the rest, but there was no fox in any of them. I trapped for about a month but I never caught a fox. When I was out I was afraid|of meeting a polar bear and every little while I would turn and look around to see if one was in sight and if there had been one I would have fainted, for I only had a snow knife with me and I didn’t know what to do to defend myself, for I never carried a rifle when out on the trap line.

I went out every day for I knew I had to get something to eat, for Knight was sick and we had|nothing in the tent. I just got weak from tramping around and I thought I would give it up, but one day I noticed some fox tracks around one of the traps so I dug the trap out of the snow, for in setting the fox traps up there you bait them and then|cover them with a little snow. But I guess I covered them|too much and that is the reason why I didn’t get any fox. Then I baited it again and|just left it on top of the snow, didn’t cover it up at all. The next morning I got up and looked out and I saw a fox. I didn’t know for sure if it was in the trap or not, but I dressed and went over and sure enough it was a white fox in my trap and that was the first one I had caught, and that was on the 22nd of February, 1923. After that I caught some more. In March I caught quite a few, one day I caught three.

Later in the spring, around April, the foxes got very scarce and I couldn't trap any more at all. After I couldn't get any more foxes Knight became worse. He got very faint every time he moved. I forgot to tell you that none of us had ever eaten a white fox before but I remembered of reading in a book that the people up north|said that they were very good to eat, so when|I caught the first one we tried it, and liked|it very much.

Around about May, I think, I took a walk across the other direction towards the small islands in the harbor, and a seagull flew over my head. I had brought a shotgun with me this time, one that belonged to Knight, and I took a shot at it with my gun and|killed it. I took it home and made some broth with it for Knight, for he could eat very little. That was the first bird I ever shot with a shotgun. I have shot them with a twenty-two rifle down home but never with a shotgun.

Around in February when he first got sick Knight gave me his Bible which belonged to his grandfather.

Along in June, about the first week , I took a walk to the west of our camp and when I was coming back across the harbor I noticed some seagulls along the beach and I wondered what they had. I thought|perhaps it was some walrus meat|or something like that. But when I got there I found they were building a nest and I found one egg. I tried to kill some of them but couldn't, so decided not to waste any more time. I had one egg for the

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night anyway. While on the rest of my way home across the lake, some white geese flew over my head. I took a shot at them and they took went on for about one hundred feet, then one of them dropped and I sure was glad. So when I got home I called to Knight, "Look what I got." He opened his eyes and said, "What is that, a seagull?" I said, "No, it is a white goose and one seagull egg." He wanted to know if the egg was fresh. I cooked the wild goose until the meat fell away from the bone. *

About three days afterwards I went back to the place where I had found the egg and found nine more in the same|nest. and Knight ate those eggs while he was living because he couldn't eat meat on account of his throat being so sore. He was so weak that I had to hold his head to give him a drink of water. I made a canvas bag and filled this bag with hot sand to keep his feet warm. Every morning and night for two months I heated this sand and put it to his feet.

About three or four weeks before he died I had to make a bag from oatmeal sacks and filled it with|cotton to put under his back because he said it was so very sore. He told me that if anything happened to him, if he was to die, to put his diary and some papers he had written in his trunk, and that I would find the key to his trunk in his|trousers' pocket. He also told me to look after his camera and rifle, be sure and keep them dry. I don't know how many times he told me to be sure and care for his camera and rifle.

About the day before he died I knew that he couldn't last much longer. He was unconscious and I was standing looking down at him and the tears were in my eyes, for I thought he was going to die. He looked up at me and said, "What is the matter, Ada?" And I told him that I thought he was going to leave me. I just couldn't help but cry for I knew he wouldn't last until the boat got there and then I would be all alone. He told me to try and get along some way until the boat arrived.

He died June 22, 1923. I found him dead the next morning after he saw me crying. I don't know what timehe died but some time in the night. After he died I wrote a letter to Mr. Stefansson and told him what day, month and the cause ofMr. Knight's death, because I thought something might happen to me, then they wouldn't know what happened to him, because a wild animal or something might get me before the boat arrived. I also wrote a letter to Mr. Galle who I thought was in Nome, Alaska. I left the letters in the typewriter so if|I was not there when the boat arrived they would find the letters and know of our deaths. I left Mr. Knight in the tent, for|I could not bury him, and I moved into another|one that we had used mostly for storing things in.

Three days after Mr. Knight died I got a seal and about a week afterwards I got another seal. I shot those with|Knight's rifle. So one day I went out again. It was the Fourth of July (I made a calendar out of typewriting paper cut into small pieces - I had one for 1922 but I had to make my own 1923 calendar which

*Footnote: This is a pathetic entry. According to our views developed in treating scurvy cases on previous expeditions (including Knight's own case in 1917) Scurvy can be cured by fresh meat if eaten underdone or raw. Similarly, raw eggs would have antiscorbatic value. Knight was of this opinion, yet he does not seem to have protested against Ada's cooking the meat and eggs. Perhaps he did not at this stage suppose his illness scurvy - and possibly it may not have been.

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I still have in my trunk). When I went to get my third seal I was crawling and crawling along on my stomach to get up close enough to shoot it and I was just ready to aim when it moved so that a large ice cake extended in front or between me and the seal. So I was moving around to get a better aim, and I had my finger on the hammer, and in moving I must have pulled it down and bang! went the gun and down went the seal into the water and I didn’t get any meat. I thought, well, I had my Fourth of July celebration anyway.

The beach was only a few yards from the back of my tent. The third seal I got I went out and about two hundred yards out from the beach on the ice was a seal, so I went out to take a shot at it and I got this one. It was so far out that I knew that I couldn’t get it to the tent without something to help me. So I went back to the tent and got a line, to pull the seal with and then started after my seal. I was nearly to it when I looked up and saw something tbatlooked just like a yellow ball coming towards me. Finally I realized it was a polar bear and I was four hundred yards from my tent. I was just about ready to faint when I turned and ran just ashard as I could until I got to my tent. I was just about ready to faint when I got there, too. I had built a high platform at the back of my tent and I climbed up onto this and took my field glasses and watched the bear and heryoung one eat my seal, at least I thought she did anyway. It finally got dark and foggy so I decided I had better not take a chance and go after it that night so I waited until the next morning. I went out and took a look but my seal was gone; all that was left was a few blood marks. The old mother bear and her young later came up to about onethundred and fifty yards from the tent.

One day just after I had cleaned my second seal I heard a noise just like a dog outside of my door and I looked out and about fifteen feet from the tent was a big bear and a youngone. I was very scared but I took my rifle and thought I would take a chance. I knew if I just hit them in the foot or some place where it would only injure them a little they would come after me, so I fired over their heads and they turned and ran a little ways and turned and looked asif they would come back, so I fired five more shots at them and they ran away for good then.

One morning after I had built a fire I opene d the door and I found a large polar bear track rightin the door way and I wentout and looked and he had been all around the tent. I had a twenty-five pound lard tin of oil outside of my tent and about three days after the first bear had been there another bear came one night and ate all of that tin of oil.

Not very long after that the boat came. It was one evening about the 19th of August. I was making my lunch or supper. I heard a funny noise like a boat whistle but thought it was a duck or something. It was foggy and I couldn't see so I didn't think any more about it until the next morning. I took my book after supper, for I couldn't go tosleep until I had read awhile, then I went to sleep. The next morning about six o'clock