Never travel without a cat
The other day I needed a “brain break” while working, which happens to me about every twenty minutes, especially if it is after 2pm. So I found myself going down a wormhole into the amazing story of Ada Blackjack and a resourceful cat named Victoria. I highly recommend taking a deep dive, but for those of you who are in a rush (but have time to read substack newsletters right now?) I will provide you with the basics.
Ada Blackjack was an Iñupiaq woman living in Alaska in the twenties, and she needed money. So, this Scandinavian guy is hanging out in town, and trying to gather people to go explore the Artic, because by the 1920’s white people were feeling really antsy and needed to colonize more shit, even if it meant freezing their butts off. The Scandinavian guy was like “Hey I’ll give you $ to cook and sew for a bunch of white guys and their sassy tabby cat Victoria, all you have to do is live with them on a cold-ass island for like…a week.”
Why the explorers needed a cat is not clear, because I can say from personal experience that cats do not like a) anything cold, b) traveling long distances, and c) places where there is not an immediate piece of paper or cardboard for them to sit on in a sun beam. But if you saw this cat, it makes sense. Victoria looks like a lot of fun:
Cut to the expedition. They get dropped off on this tiny Artic Island and the Scandinavian guy said “Oh, u thought I was coming too?? Like, I SO would but like, I have this thing…and the…stuff,” and then he promptly pulls up anchor and is like “PSYCH!!!!!.”
Within minutes of getting off the boat all of the group gets scurvy, because that’s just what people did for attention back then. A couple of months go by and the group’s “leader” if you can call him that is like “Don’t worry I think there’s a boat coming with anti-scurvy rations soon!” but it was not a boat with anti-scurvy rations. It was in fact a not-boat coming and bringing extra scurvy.
Three of the guys, seeing that things are not so great, were like “We’re gonna go to Russia, seems like a good idea,” leaving Ada and Victoria to care for their shitty team leader. That’s the last we hear from those three, and the lesson there is that if you leave your cat behind, you will not survive.
Meanwhile the leader guy is like literally covered in bed sores from scurvy, shitting the bed. Yet in his misery manages to find energy to keep berating Ada, and throwing books at her head, despite the fact she is literally changing his diapers and her hunting capabilities (a skill I should add, she had to learn out of survival!!!!) are the only thing keeping them alive. Men really are the worst.
Finally, he dies (yay!) so it’s just Ada and Victoria and the two are stressed, but Victoria keeps Ada’s spirits up and the two spend the next year doing what women and cats do best together: hunting seals and writing in their diaries. It’s funny to read her diary because it’s clear that Victoria is still 100% that cat because some entries Ada is like “I spent all week skinning this seal and now the cat has scratched and bit it up god damn it.” Some things never change with cats.
Finally, the Scandinavian guy comes back after two years and is like “What I miss?” and Ada is like “Boy do I have a funny story for you.”
So understandably, everyone is amazed at Ada’s tale of survival but all she wants is her pay and to get back to her son, and to speak to someone besides a cat. However, the Scandinavian guy is like, “Oh about that money? I left the other half in my other pair of pants I’ll get u back later I swear.” But he does not, and instead makes a gajillion dollars with a book about Ada, while Ada goes home and spends the rest of her life uncompensated. It’s a sad and unfortunately all too common ending for women like Ada throughout history, and it is infuriating to me this woman doesn’t have like…78 statues dedicated to her or something? Anything? Hell even Victoria deserves a statue.
You can also read the diaries she kept while on the island and they are such a fascinating read!
Anyways, I hope you will read more about Ada and Victoria and remember to keep your cats close and your Scandinavians the fuck away.
P.S. I tried to create an AI image of a hero cat working hard in the 1920’s and this is what I have for you:
Thing 1: Pigeon Report
It’s been a crazy year in NYC but when you’re a politician, no time for sleep when there’s pigeon law to be made.
Currently up for debate is whether to ban releasing doves and pigeons at weddings. Personally, I can think of nothing better that represents love than a bunch of migratory birds who eat plastic bags like candy and shit on their best friends.
As much as I dislike pigeons, I think having animals perform for human rituals is a little cruel, especially when the people using them seem to be supes heteronormative (remember when that pigeon died after being used in a gender reveal!!!) So, I guess I can support protecting pigeons, if it means it makes people who throw gender reveals butthurt. In fact, not only do I support it, but I also fully ENDORSE this legislation and I WILL be running for my local district on this ticket.
But lest you think I’m a sure winner, one pigeon breeder, who was too scared to give his last name due to fear of retaliation from BIG BIRD (not the sesame street character, I mean the bird lobby, which is coincidentally, led by that Sesame Street character.)
Once a pigeon is born, it takes “four weeks — that’s it. Then it’s time to see what you got. Then you start by chasing them with a big garbage bag,” said Anthony, 73, who spoke to THE CITY last Friday about how he trains his birds as he climbed a ladder up to the roof in the record-level rain to feed them.
Nothing weird to see here folks, just a man chasing his pigeons with a big garbage bag…now that’s the kind of love I CAN get behind.
Grade: I think we’ll call this a tie and say pigeons and I are on the same page for once.
Thing 2:
Baby Platypus!!!
Thing 3:
If you’re not watching the current season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, do you even like ART or CINEMA??? Because it is perfect. Vivien Leigh is shaking in her grave at this insane delivery…
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