I just started reading this book and it is interesting.  A friend gave it to me to read, she couldn't put it down until she was finished with the story and couldn't stop raving about how interesting it was.
In a nutshell:  Ada is a native Eskimo girl in her early 20's who accompanies four young men to Wrangell Island as an advance party to an Arctic expedition.  She ends up being the only one to return alive after two years.  This takes place around 1914-1917 time period.
The story is written around her recollections and the "lost" diaries of the young men who died (apparently Ada brought back the diaries with her).
I'll write more when I've read further.  IC

Interesting time for Arctic exploring. Lot's of stories of hardships.

The first half of this book was the "adventure" part, and interesting reading.  Then the book digressed into details about how Steffanson, the families of the deceased men, and the press and other involved parties handled the aftermath of the incident.  This was not so interesting to me, but may be to others who are more interested in the potential politics of the whole affair.

The 3 men who disappeared headed for Siberia over the ice when the relief ship didn't (couldn't) make it to the island to resupply them.  As bad luck would have it, a furious storm came up just a day after their departure, likely causing them to perish from the elements or becoming lost and ending up falling through bad ice.

One man was left in camp with Ada, he had a case of scurvy which got worse and ended up killing him the second spring.  Ada managed to learn to hunt with a gun and trap to feed herself and was lucky enough not to become a polar bear's dinner.  The second summer a ship did make it to the island and brought her back to safety.

A lot of the book revolves around Steffanson who was a famous explorer, but his method seems to have been to organize expeditions and send others out to do the actual "exploring" ahead of him.  This was at least the second of his expeditions which ended up badly for the majority of the participants while Steffanson was at home in the USA and UK doing a lecture circuit expounding the wonderful "friendly Arctic".   :-/

I read this book a couple of years ago.  It was a good read.  Kim

I just read this. I'm not very keen about it. IMO it needed to be edited down to half as long. I'll give 2 out of 5 stars.