stefansson-wrangel-09-32-079v

358 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

that what he said and did was influenced by his then being on the
verge of a nervous collapse. We accept that explanation partly
because we know that his conduct for six months after his return
from Wrangel Island differed markedly from what we knew to be
normal to him before. But perhaps even more conclusive is a second
reason. If you go thoroughly into what he said and did you will
realize that any normal person would have refrained from such con-
duct, for he would have recognized that it would in the end injure
himself most seriously. This is our final and conclusive reason for
accepting Mr. Noice’s explanation of nervous breakdown.

In so far as it was mechanically possible within the time allowed,
ice have removed from this book everything made unnecessary by
Mr. Noice’s retraction. Unfortunately, we have nevertheless been
compelled to retain certain things that must hurt him. We have
done this only where we felt that the memories of the dead would
otherwise suffer or else that a very important historical or scientific
issue would otherwise be clouded.

Whenever we are compelled to establish the incorrectness of any-
thing published and not yet retracted by Mr. Noice, we are doing
not to accuse him but only to defend those whom he has accused.

The situation unfortunately cannot be fully understood without
a brief summary of the career of Mr. Noice, explaining at least how
he came to be in such control of the documents of the men who had
died that he was enabled to publish his account of the alleged mis-
management and incompetence of the Wrangel Island party, with
the relatives and friends unable at the time either to prevent or
contradict.

Mr. Harold Noice ceased his education in the middle of high
school and, after various vicissitudes, undertook at twenty a motion
picture enterprise which led him into the Arctic and finally made
him for two years a member of one of my expeditions, as related in
my book, “The Friendly Arctic.” He came to New York in the
Is this date correct? Yes spring of 1922 with a large ethnological collection which he hoped
to sell for enough money to support him in New York a year or two
while he was writing up the story of his adventures. I had told him
that I thought he could sell the collection advantageously to the
American Museum of Natural History or to Mr. Heye’s Museum
of the American Indian, and I did all in my power toward that
end. Surprisingly, there seemed to be almost no market in New