Book summary

Ada Blackjack served as the Inuit guide for four young men who, in 1923, trekked across the Arctic to an island north of Siberia, in order to claim it for Britain. Underfunded, underequipped, and misguided from the start, the expedition was a disaster. All four of the explorers perished, and Ada Blackjack was the only survivor. Having survived polar bears, food shortages, seal hunting, and a two-year period when the group was trapped by ice and unable to move, Ada returned home to her little son--and to a barrage of publicity and exploitation from the press and the public.