The Native Alaskan Survival Story That Revealed How Indigenous Knowledge Helped Humans Adapt To One Of Earth’s Harshest Environments

When the Donaldson returned to Nome with Ada Blackjack in August 1923, the story briefly captured international attention.

She was called the “Female Robinson Crusoe.” Journalists from newspapers across North America wrote about her courage and survival.

She was, for a few weeks, something close to famous.

Then the machinery of exploitation that had been operating since before she left Nome caught up with her.

Harold Noice, the man who had rescued her, took possession of the diaries she had kept on the island during her isolation.

Those diaries were the primary detailed record of what had happened — Ada’s own account of the trapping, the hunting, the boat-building, the nursing of Knight, the months of solitude.