Cat in the Corner

 

In 1921, a young Inuit mother named Ada Blackjack was looking for work. She desperately needed money to care for her sick son, Bennett. Some explorers offered her a job as seamstress on an Arctic expedition. The team planned to claim remote Wrangel Island for Canada. Ada was the only woman in the group. She didn’t know how to hunt or survive in the wild, but she could sew and cook. Winter hit hard. Food ran out. The men left to get help, leaving Ada behind with a sick teammate and a cat. When the man died, Ada and the cat were alone, 700 miles from the nearest settlement, for two years – the sole survivors of the expedition. Eventually, a rescue party arrived and Ada was reunited with her son, who lived. “I consider my mother to be one of the most loving mothers in this world and one of the greatest heroines in the history of Arctic exploration,” he said.