stefansson-wrangel-09-32-081r

THE WRANGEL ISLAND DOCUMENTS 361

Five weeks after the news of the tragedy I sailed from England,
still without information as to why the statements so far given
out by Mr. Noice were at variance with what I felt must necessarily
be true. On landing in New York October 15th, 1923, I soon ac-
quired a distressingly clear understanding.

From my previous personal relations with Mr. Noice and the
cables I had sent, I expected him to be among those to meet me
when the steamer landed. Instead, I was met by my associates,
Mr. A. J. T. Taylor and Mr. John Anderson, who had come down
from Toronto to give me an immediate and personal explanation of
the incredible tangle in which we now found ourselves.

The gist of the story as given by Taylor and Anderson was that
Mr. Noice had arrived in Toronto bringing back a few odds and
ends that he had found on Wrangel Island, and certain diaries,
papers and photographs which he said were all he had recovered.
There were letters to myself and to the relatives, several hundred
photographic films, some fragmentary papers of little significance
and a diary kept by Ada Blackjack on Wrangel Island after Lorne
Knight had become unable to keep his. But outranking every-
thing else in importance was the diary of Lorne Knight from the
landing at Wrangel in 1921 until shortly before his death in 1923,
when he had become too weak to write. The diaries of Crawford,
Galle and Maurer had been taken along when they left Wrangel
Island in January, 1923, and Mr. Noice believed they had been
lost with them. It was deplorable that these diaries should have
been lost; but even more deplorable was what Mr. Noice told
Taylor and Anderson about the contents of Lorne Knight’s diary.
In spite of the pain and shock the alleged revelations gave them,
they did not at the time question the correctness of his summary
and did not examine the diary.

The sum of the statement was that in addition to general infor-
mation covering the two years, the diary contained unbelievable
revelations with regard to the relations of the four men and Ada
Blackjack. Mr. Noice said that he had already torn out of the
diary and segregated the pages containing these revelations. It
seemed strange at the time that the pages had been torn out, but
under the strain of hurry and worry nothing was done about it
except that Mr. Taylor said to Mr. Noice that I would decide what
was to be done when Mr. Noice handed over the expedition papers