stefansson-wrangel-09-32-046r

EXPLANATION AND APOLOGY OF MR. HAROLD NOICE 295

men and dogs were weak from hunger, and that the under-
taking was of such a nature that there was small chance
of a safe journey to Siberia. This was not the fact.
Knight and Crawford planned the first journey, and the
date for it was set several months before when no ap-
proaching food shortage was contemplated, and it was
actually undertaken later at about the time set. Prob-
ably 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 consid-
erable 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 prob-
ably a slow one from freezing brought on through weak-
ening 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 publi-
cation of the original long and detailed newspaper story
and its approach must have been the cause of what I later