The rescue of Ada Blackjack in August 1923 was news for a few weeks.

International press ran stories about the “Female Robinson Crusoe,” the Iñupiat seamstress who had outlasted her male companions on a frozen island.

And then the story faded, overshadowed by other events and complicated by the messy aftermath: Ada did not receive the wages she had been promised, the diaries she had kept on the island were taken by Harold Noice, and Stefansson — the man whose adventure scheme had put her there — published his account with minimal acknowledgment of what she had actually contributed.

But the questions her story raised did not fade.