Rating: 
Summary: Glad I picked this up
Review: My wife saw this book advertised in the New York Times and asked for it for Christmas. Being a wife and mother she was interested in the female angle, but I ended up reading it first. I think it's a book that appeals to both men and women. My wife loved it because she could relate to Ms. Blackjack's love for her son and the way in which she'd do anything to help him, even if it meant going on an expedition into the unknown. My wife found her inspiring because of her faith in her son and in God and also in herself, and I did too, but I also loved the adventure of the story. I've read all the other big adventure books like Into Thin Air and Perfect Storm and others but it's nice to see a woman in the role of hero. We're giving it to our daughter to read so that she can be inspired too.
Rating:
Summary: Survival or Bravery?
Review: Not many of us have ever heard of an island that is generally barren, frozen and rocky through most of the year located in the Arctic Ocean between the East Siberian Sea and the Chukotsk Sea-Wrangel Island.In 1921, a Canadian explorer, Vihjalmur Stefansson, sent four young men, only one an actual British subject, and one Eskimo woman, Ada Blackjack, to Wrangel Island. The objective was to claim the island for Great Britain, and to prove that it was possible to survive in this "godforsaken" place, notwithstanding its cruel climate and terrain. The original venture was only to be a vanguard for a grand and elaborate further British expedition that was to join the group the following summer.
Unbeknown to the four young men, the expedition was never approved or supported by the British Government, and Stefansson never joined the group the following summer.
In fact, Stefansson was more interested in self-aggrandizement with his lecturing tours and writings than he was with the welfare of the group. Jennifer Niven, author of Ada Blackjack A Story Of Survival In The Arctic, has brilliantly pieced together, through her extensive research of diaries, journals, letters, unpublished manuscripts, papers that were written by the four young men, their families, and the Eskimo woman, Ada Blackjack, a vivid picture as to what had transpired, while these brave, naïve, and inexperienced individuals lived on the island. What is so tragic about the entire expedition is that only one individual survived, Ada Blackjack. Three members, due to a shortage of food, left the party for the Siberian coast, and the fourth one died of scurvy, while being under the compassionate care of Ada Blackjack.
As for Stefansson, he managed to more or less protect his reputation, while casting the blame of this disastrous and ill- prepared venture on others. If there is a lesson in Ada Blackjack A Story Of Survival In The Arctic it is that sometimes fear combined with religious faith turns out to be your savior. Although, Ada Blackjack may have initially feared hunting, as well as living with a sick person, whom she was forced to care for, it was these fears that ultimately contributed to her survival.
Was Ada Blackjack brave? When asked to comment, she would say, "Brave? I don't know about that. But I would never give up hope while I'm still alive." It was probably this hope that continued to help her survive after her return from Wrangel Island, as her life was filled with turmoil, poverty, sadness, slander, illness, and constant escape from a taunting society. Niven's prose is truly a remarkable, absorbing and powerful read. In two words, it is irresistibly readable. You are immediately hooked by the author's ease of recapturing the intensity and history of the expedition, and the vivid dialogue of the story's principal characters. You are also taken in by the way Niven has admirably focused a great deal of her story on the first Eskimo heroine, Ada Blackjack. Norm Goldman Editor of Bookpleasures
Rating: 
Summary: Tragic story of treatment of an Eskimo woman
Review: Someone gave me this book as a gift. I am a Native Alaskan, born and raised. The whole story was a tragedy - of young naive men taken advantage of by a con-artist, who is still touted as a 'great explorer' by the likes of Harvard University. Even more tragic is the idea of the time the events took place - that Eskimos were 'lower than whites', their lives were not important - especially an Eskimo woman. No wonder my family was ashamed for decades to admit to being 'Native'. Now that there are advantages to being 'Native', everyone wants to be one. Read this book - and if you don't see the tragedy in it - you don't have a heart.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating tale
Review: This was one of my best books of the year for 2003. I bought it the first week it came out and finished it in 24 hours. It is wonderful. I see so much written in these reviews about Ada Blackjack and not as much about Jennifer Niven, so I just want to take the opportunity to commend Ms. Niven on her writing. Not only is Ada Blackjack a well researched and documented story of nonfiction, but it reads like a novel. I was able to get inside the characters in a way that I'm not always able to when reading nonfiction. It is obvious that Jennifer Niven cares about her characters, and because of that the reader does too. Her writing is compelling and rich and she captures the voice of each character vividly. In the end, I felt they had told me their story and not the other way around. I wish more books were able to do this successfully.
Rating:
Summary: An astonishing story, beautifully written
Review: When you're thinking of dropping out to an exotic locale for a year, I would guess that the frozen wastelands of The North Siberian Islands are not usually the first thing you type into Google. As it turned out, for Ada Blackjack, Siberia's Wrangel Island was not exactly vacation destination #1 either, but as part of a 1920s surveying and land claims expedition she wound up spending two years struggling to survive the island's brutal climate. Jennifer Niven's new book tells Ada's story: from the formation of the expeditionary party by a meglomaniacal sponsor, through the ordeal on the island, to Ada's life after Wrangel. Niven's writing in simply incredible. She has succeeded brilliantly at finding the balance between relaying the historical facts of Ada's life and telling a great adventure story; the true hallmark of good historical writing. But, ultimately, it is Ada, herself, that casued me to love this book. She is a fascinating character on so many levels. Her life both before and after Wrangel was filled with more turmoil than most, but it is the two years on the island that make this biography a real winner. Brought up to Wrangel as a cook in the company of four adventurers, it seemed unlikely that she would be the only one to survive. But it was Ada's perserverence, adaptability and intelligence that allowed her to emerge as the lone survivor while her four compatriots were voted off the island by disease, exposure and tragic errors in judgment. Ada Blackjack is a tremendously good read. For lovers of adventure writing, history or girl power, Niven has delivered.
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