stefansson-wrangel-09-20-051

November 12, 1923.

Dear Mr. Maurer:

I was hoping to be able to stop off in New Philadelphia on my way East from the lectures in Michigan but our legal troubles in England are very urgent and my lawyers insisted that I must come back to New York immediately. The trouble in England is, as your sister has probably explained to you more fully, that not only did Noice make an unauthorized bargain with the North American Newspaper Alliance in America, pocketing some of the money and trying to get the rest, but he also led them to believe that he had the right to sell them newspaper rights for Great Britain. I had previously sold the rights in Great Britain on behalf of the heirs of the boys. The price I got in England was $1,500. but the North American Newspaper Alliance sold Noice's story in England to another purchaser. Now there are two questions, first, that I may be compelled to give back the $1,500. received on behalf of the relatives; and secondly, I may be sued for damages, since one of the sales in England was made by myself and the other was made by Noice who at the time he made it was acting as our agent. The lawyers seem to think that the fact he deceived us and disobeyed our orders does not relieve us from the legal responsibility of carrying out bargains he made on our behalf while acting as our agent.

These things are very distressing and I shall not trouble you much with them, especially since they are likely to be decided one way or another in the course of a few days, whereupon the situation can be explained as it will finally stand.

I received this morning a very fine but also very pathetic letter from Mrs. Galle. I am sending you a copy hoping it will reach you before your young fellow-townsman starts for his drive to Texas. If it does, you can talk it over with him and give him your point of view on the things that are troubling Mrs. Galle. We must all agree that Noice's unkind references to Knight are not only unjust but in the very worst taste, even if they were true. I am quite unable to see what point of view Mr. Noice could have had in saying these things, for he ought to have realized that they would not only hurt everyone concerned but injure himself as well.

In Canada the Noice story is doing the greatest harm through his continual reiteration that the boys were young and inexperienced. If anyone would take the trouble to go over the history of

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arctic exploration they would find that there have been very few of the famous explorers of the last hundred years who had more experience when they sailed upon their last expeditions than either your brother or Lorne Knight. Scott, for instance, died in the Antarctic before the end of his second year and your brother had more than two years of experience when he started North - more in other words than Scott had when he died. Knight had three years of experience and had traveled over moving ice more than any explorer living with the exception of Storkerson and myself. Peary was the only explorer who ever traveled more over moving ice. I am not sure exactly how old Fred and Lorne were but my idea is they were about twenty-eight or thirty, which would be considered about the best age for the sort of work they were doing.

Noice's reiteration that no one in the party had any experience and that they were all young has had a very painful result in the case of the Crawfords. From my point of view the silver lining to the very black cloud we are under has so far been the great kindness, sympathy and fairness of all the relatives of the boys. But now both Mr. and Mrs. Crawford have suddenly turned violently against me, saying it was a crime to let their boy and Milton Galle go out with two men who were alleged to have experience but really didn't have any. Of course, it seems absurd for them to take this point of view since they could turn to my “Friendly Arctic" and find out from that that both Fred and Lorne had more experience than almost any polar explorer has ever had

My chief worry about the Crawfords is that their present point of view makes the situation harder for them to bear than it would have been otherwise. If you read carefully the diary entries published by Noice, omitting his sensational comments, you will see that the idea that the boys were in great fear of starvation and were either fleeing from the island or making a desperate effort to fetch food from Siberia has been made up by Noice. In their own minds they had several sensible reasons for making a trip. They thought that I might possibly be on the coast of Siberia, and wanted to communicate with me. If I were not there, they intended to go to Nome and send me a wireless asking further instructions. Certainly I could never say that they were wrong in what they did, for I should probably have done exactly the same if I had been on Wrangel Island.

Chapters XIV to SVIII of “The Friendly Arctic" show just the conditions the boys had to meet between Wrangel Island and Siberia and just the conditions they knew they would meet. You will notice in the copy of Knight's last letter, which I am sending you, that he speaks of accidents being possible in the polar regions just as they are in civilized countries. I suppose that if asked at the time they were starting how dangerous they thought the trip was they would have considered it about as dangerous as flying from New York to Ohio - a journey where accidents might easily occur but where you did not really expect them.

I am writing to Delphine suggesting that she may

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possibly write a letter to Mrs. Crawford, giving her view of the case about as she did to me at Cleveland. I am thinking that such a letter may help Mrs. Crawford a great deal, for her present mental attitude has fewer elements of comfort in it than that of any of the other relatives. I feel certain that when the story is fully known we shall all have a good deal of reason to be proud of the way the boys carried through the two years. The Crawfords at present seem to shut their eyes to everything that is heroic and creditable and to concentrate their minds on Noice’s allegations of mismanagement, misfortune and suffering.

I have just been re-reading your letter of October 20th and have noticed what you say about Fred's letter to you in which he said that they were leaving Wrangel Island because of shortage of food. I am very anxious to see that letter and have wired you for a copy. I feel sure he means by shortage of food only what I have said already to the effect that, since the middle of the winter is a very poor hunting season because of the shortness of the period of daylight each day, and that they were leaving for Siberia with the idea of relieving the commissariat at Wrangel Island from the feeding of half the party and all the dogs. If I had been there I should have done similarly.

The only thing that puzzles me is that in the letters I have seen so far they do not speak of intending to return to Wrangel Island in March, which is what I would have planned to do. Of course, Crawford implies in his letter to me that the reason they are not returning is that they want to continue on to Nome to send out information to me by wireless and to ask for instructions.

I feel much better since I had the talk with your sister and Delphine in Cleveland. It is evident that both of them feel their loss as much as anyone could, but they are also certainly taking it in as fine a spirit as anyone could.

I am now most worried about the Crawfords for Noice has put into their minds a feeling of resentment towards me which I think unjustified, and even some resentment towards Crawford's companions which certainly is not justified by any actual evidence we have but only by Noice's assertions, which he has not been able to confirm by any actual quotation from Knight’s diary. It seems to have been remarkable how well the boys got along with each other and worked together.

I have just received a letter from Aarnout Castel, of which I send you a copy. The letter awaited my return to New York. I am wiring him in Seattle asking for further information and also putting to him once more the question of whether he thinks there is even one chance in a million that the boys may have been taken prisoners by the Russians. Castel will know, for he has lived on the coast south of Wrangel Island for the last three years.

Delphine and your sister will have given you the details about the troubles with Noice. They affect a good deal the question of a possible memorial, which you mention in your letter. The

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money for the magazine and newspaper articles was intended by me to go towards such a memorial unless it were divided among the relatives of the boys. But now Noice has got hold of most of it and, although he has no real right, it seems we shall be legally unable to get it back from him - especially as he has probably spent it by now and has no other resources.

I received about four o'clock your telegram giving your brother’s address as the Great Northern Hotel, Chicago. I immediately called the hotel and found that, although he was not there, he was expected in that day. I left a message for him. I called up later (about seven or eight o'clock) and was told that he had not been in. I was compelled to leave at midnight and regret very much not having seen him.