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At the last moment I have been induced to destroy a large part of the present chapter and to rewrite many parts of a book that had already been set up in type.

My chief concern is to make straight the record of the gallant men who died on Wrangel Island. Within a week of going to press, Mr. Noice on his own initiative prepared and has authorized me to publish the following explanation and apology.

New York, October 16, 1924

Mr Vilhjalmur Stefansson, American Geographical Society, Broadway at 156th Street, New York, N^Y

Sir:

On my return last week from Brazil where I have spent six months, mainly in recuperating after a very severe attack of nervous prostration, I re-read the documents of the Wrangle Island Expedition with the exception of Milton Galle's diary; and I have also re-read the stories which appeared in the newspapers over my signature. I am glad to take this opportunity of correcting some misjudgements. Having spent a number of years in the Arctic and loving the Arctic and believing in it as a habitable place, I wanted to show that Wrangel Island was valuable, a very good game country, a desireable place to live, as we Northerners judge places. But the general effect of my stories as published in the newspapers seems to lose that idea in some sentimental writing which over-emphasizes the "hardships" and drawbacks of the North.

Those stories were given out verbally in interviews

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(not written) by me at a time when I was in a serious nervous condition. They were based on a hasty reading of the documents. When I went to Nome the summer of 1923 I was but recently out of the hospital where I had undergone a serious operation. The nervous strain of organizing and outfitting the relief expedition, the oppositions put in my way in Alaska, the Soviet threats, plus the task of manoeuvring the Donaldson through the ice to Wrangel, and, most of all, the terrible shock of the tragedy I found on the island, all these were undoubtedly responsible for certain incorrect impressions which unfortunately passed on into print. The false impression of Wrangel ( or any part of the North that I know) given in my newspaper stories is offset by my own book "With Stefansson in the Arctic" (Dodd Mead, New York, and George G Harrap, London) in which I originally thought of calling "A Polar Picnic."

Though I actually wrote none of the newspaper stories, I am responsible for them. I find that I used the words "youth and inexperience” several times although Maurer and Knight were twenty-eight and twenty-nine years old when they started on the Wrangel Island expedition, and were experienced men in the North. It was only the other two, Crawford and Galle, who were having their first look at the arctic.

As published, my newspaper stories gave the impression that the fatal journey away from Wrangel Island was made under pressure of food scarcity, that the neospa purpose of the journey was to bring back succor, that the men and dogs were weak from hunger, and that the undertaking was of such a nature that there was small chance of a safe journey to Siberia. This

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was not the fact. Knight and Crawford planned the first journey, and the date for it was set several months before when no approaching food shortage was contemplated, and it was actually undertaken later at about the time set. Probably they would have made the attempt at about the same time of year and with about the same prospects of success if there had been the largest quantity of food on hand. After the return of Knight and Crawford the fact that food had begun to run low, although there was a considerable supply still on hand, was one reason why the plan for a journey to Nome via Siberia was not abandoned. The principal lack was fresh meat.

I did not intend to give the impression that the death of the three men, Crawford, Galle and Maurer, was probably a slow one from freezing brought on through weakening by starvation. It is much more likely and almost certain that the death did take place suddenly in one of two ways - either by the party getting in the poor light on unsafely thin ice, and being drowned by breaking through, or else by the breaking up of the ice upon which they were camped in a gale, perhaps in the darkness of night.

The general impression given by my news story now appears to me unduly critical. I did and I do want to do justice to these brave men while analyzing the causes of their tragedy.

My complete breakdown followed soon after the publication of the original long and detailed newspaper story and its approach must have been the cause of what I later printed and which I was then convinced I was justified by Knight's and

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Ada Blackjack's diaries I sincerely regret that any false impressions have been given and humbly apologize for my errors.

New York, October 19th, 1924

Harold Noice

( END PUBLICATION WITH ABOVE SIGNATURE. DO NOT PUBLISH FOLLOWING )

I, Harold Noice, do hereby assert that I have read the above statement and re-read the accompanying letter written by myself and addressed to Mr. Stefansson and that unqualified permission is hereby given by me to Mr. Stefansson and the publishers of his book, "The Adventure of Wrangel Island,” to publish both of the aforementioned documents, namely Mr. Stefansson's explanation of my letter and the letter itself, and have requested the parties who were then present to witness my signature hereto, this 19th day of October, 1924

Harold Noice ↑ In same focus 2 cuts

Witnesses, [R.M.Baghamy] Isaiah Bowman Joseph I. Knight V. Stefansson.

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