stefansson-wrangel-09-31-107v

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172 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

of veterans!) or incompetence. In making out that case
he does not follow the documents on which his case was
alleged to be based. He has later said that this was
because he did not study the documents carefully enough
before publishing his story. The important point is
that essential parts of both his narrative and his criticism
are contradicted by the records.

As the historian of the Wrangel Island occupation and
the biographer of the men who died, I am compelled
either to allow them to remain discredited or to insist on
careful analysis of Mr. Noice’s newspaper articles which
have been generally understood to discredit them.

Unfortunately I have no way of completely discredit-
ing the story which has thrown a cloud over the memories
of the dead without bringing Mr. Noice personally into
the case by a method it distresses me to employ. He was
in 1916 and 1917 my satisfactory traveling companion on
long and laborious arctic sledge journeys, where I owed
him gratitude for faithful service rendered cheerfully
under conditions that were sometimes not easy. But
Knight and Maurer, whose incompetence and inexpe-
rience (!) Mr. Noice has frequently stated or implied,
were my arctic comrades also, capable, faithful, reliable
in good or evil times alike. Knight at least had been also
shipmate and trailmate of Mr. Noice, who now calls him
“a piece of driftwood,” says about him that “he was not
mentally equipped to save himself or others,” and tells to
millions of newspaper readers the story of his last ven-
ture and death in such a way as to seem to justify these
disparaging epithets and a description in general deroga-
tory. I cannot see how I can shirk the task of presenting
enough evidence to enable the reader to judge at least

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