One of the most important strands of the Wrangel Island story involves scurvy — specifically, why Lorne Knight and presumably the other men died of vitamin C deficiency while Ada Blackjack, eating the same basic diet from the same basic food sources, survived.

The answer lies in what Ada understood, instinctively or through Iñupiat cultural osmosis, about how to eat the food she hunted.

Scurvy was the great killer of Arctic expeditions throughout the history of European exploration.

British naval expeditions, the search for the Northwest Passage, the numerous attempts to reach the North Pole — all of them were haunted by scurvy.

The disease killed with terrible slowness, and European explorers struggled for centuries to understand why they could not prevent it.

They knew, eventually, that fresh citrus fruits cured it — hence “limeys” for British sailors.