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It was a tale of human endurance that still manages to impress in a region littered with such stories: 49 days in the wilderness with virtually no food.

And yet, only hours after her chance 1963 rescue, 21-year-old plane crash survivor Helen Klaben couldn’t seem to get over what the experience had done to her figure.

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“I could hardly believe my eyes or the scales when they put me on it,” she wrote in the memoir Hey, I’m Alive. “It said I weighed 100 pounds. 100 pounds! Imagine me weighing 100 pounds!”

Usually, tales of epic Northern survival involve trappers, prospectors or bush pilots; hard-bitten locals accustomed to the brutal rigours of outdoor life.

Klaben, by contrast, could not have been less prepared for an extended outdoor stay in a place where temperatures regularly dipped below -40 C.

She was afraid of the dark and terrified of wild animals. Raised in Brooklyn, she had chosen Alaska as her first major trip away from home, and on the drive there she had been amazed at the sight of grazing cows.