Ada and the Ice
for Ada Blackjack
She was not an explorer, not born for acclaim—
Just a mother with worry, with sorrow, with shame.
A seamstress who stitched through her hunger and grief,
And boarded a ship for her son’s short-lived relief.
The white men had plans: to plant flags in the snow,
To claim frozen kingdoms where no man should go.
But Ada, the only Inuk there that day,
Went not for adventure, but for the small pay.
They set her to sew, and the seasons turned cold,
The food disappeared, and the mission grew old.
The men took the ice, promised aid would arrive—
But the ice swallowed them.
None came back alive.
Alone she remained, with the wind and the cat,
A whisper of warmth in a world cold and flat.
One man lay dying—she nursed him with care,
Till silence was all that was left in the air.
No hunter by trade, yet she hunted to live.
No soldier, yet fought with what ice would not give.
A Bible. A rifle. A knife in her hand.
She stood with the foxes, alone in that land.
She read through the dark. She stitched through the pain.
She lit tiny fires. She prayed in the rain.
She fashioned new mittens when frost bit her skin,
And slept with her cat, as the cold crept in.
Two years on the ice. With no word. No reprieve.
Yet somehow, she stayed. She refused to leave.
And when they returned, they found her still there—
Thin.
Worn.
But alive… in the breathless white air.
The papers praised heroes whose names filled the sky,
But Ada? Forgotten. Passed over. Passed by.
Yet she was the last one the Arctic could break—
A fighter, a mother, for her young son’s sake.
And Vic was there, with a flick of his tail,
The one soft companion who watched through the gale.
She survived, as did the cat. Together they stayed—
Two souls in the cold,
Unwritten.
Unpraised.
But now…
We remember.
We speak of her name.
Ada Blackjack—
A legend of flame.