She was eating fresh meat — freshly trapped foxes, freshly shot birds, freshly caught seals — and she was eating it in the way that the circumstances of Arctic hunting naturally dictated: fresh, not heavily processed.

She was providing Knight with the same fresh meat in the hope that it would reverse his scurvy progression, which it partially did — slowing the disease enough that he survived months longer than he might have otherwise.

The four men had arrived with Western supplies and Western food habits.

When those supplies ran out, they were eating what they could catch, but their approach to food preparation and food selection was shaped by habits that systematically removed the vitamin C they needed.

Ada Blackjack, who had grown up in an Iñupiat cultural context even if she had been separated from traditional practices, maintained a different relationship with her food that ultimately made the difference.