6. The newspapers referred to Ada as the Female Robinson Crusoe? Do you think this was a suitable name for Ada? Give reasons for your answer.
Answers
Answer:
Ellie Cawthorne tells the tale of the ‘female Robinson Crusoe’ who lived for two years on Wrangel Island in the Arctic when an expedition went wrong
On 19 August 1923, a freezing evening drew in on Wrangel Island, 100 miles north of the coast of Siberia. As a thick blanket of fog rolled over the bleak Arctic landscape, Ada Blackjack sat swaddled in a thick reindeer parka, preparing her meagre evening meal.
Blackjack had arrived on the island two years earlier as the seamstress attached to a party of Arctic explorers. But the ill-fated expedition had been plagued by illness and bad weather, and she was now the only one of the five members left alive.
As she settled down to make her food that evening, Ada heard an unfamiliar noise. Deciding it must have been “a duck or something”, she retired to her tent and tried to sleep. At 6am the next morning, she heard the sound again, but this time, “it sounded more like a boat whistle”. Grabbing her binoculars, Blackjack ran outside. Sure enough, in the distance she spotted a schooner, its crewmen wandering about on the shore. Finally, Blackjack’s salvation had arrived – her two-year ordeal was over.