Reviewed by Caroline Cummins

In the fall of 1921, four white men, one Inuit woman and a pet cat named Victoria set off for the Arctic, bent on colonizing desolate Wrangel Island and living off the fat of the land. But the land was lean, the weather harsh and the expedition woefully ill-equipped.

By the time a relief ship made it through the ice, two years later, only the Inuit and the cat were still alive.

Ada Blackjack, the Inuit, was a “city Eskimo” just as naïve and inexperienced as the white men who hired her. Terrified of polar bears and traumatized by her isolation, Blackjack nevertheless managed to learn to shoot, set traps and build boats, shelters and a lookout tower on the island. On her return to civilization, Blackjack was hailed as a hero. But she shunned publicity and spent the rest of her reclusive life trying to forget Wrangel Island.

Blackjack’s refusal to talk or write much down makes her a difficult subject for a biography. But Niven expends less time on her titular character than she does on the lives of the four men and the famous explorer, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who inspired them in their folly. Niven profiled Stefansson — a manipulative showman deluded by his belief in what he called “the Friendly Arctic” – in an earlier book, “The Ice Master,” about a similar Arctic disaster. “Ada Blackjack” is essentially a sequel, in which the hazards of polar exploration are nothing compared to the dangers of public relations afterward.

By the end of Niven’s relentless recounting, in which Stefansson ruthlessly exploits his idealistic young followers for personal fame and fortune, it’s easy to see why Blackjack shut the door to all comers. But there’s also a sense of justice in seeing her story, as well as those of her fellow explorers, finally told.