stefansson-wrangel-09-32-084r

THE WRANGEL ISLAND DOCUMENTS 367

signature of Mr. Noice proved sensational in general and incor-
rect in several particulars, as anyone familiar with arctic condi-
tions was bound to suspect from the beginning and as we now
know from an examination of the documents. That appears in
other chapters of this book. What we must note here is that the
first public contradiction of the original story came from Mr. Noice
himself.⁵ This contradiction coincided in time with his eventual
surrender to us of certain documents. When I returned from Eng-
land it happened fortunately that most of the expedition papers
were in the hands of a New York news organization. After some
delay caused by legal formalities, these were turned over to our
company—but not until after Mr. Noice’s version of the story
had been published.

When we received the documents we tried first to ascertain to
what extent they had been mutilated. With the loose papers this
was impossible, for there was no page numbering. But Lorne
Knight’s diary proved to be in two notebooks that had been orig-
inally made with numbered pages. We found that from Volume
I there were missing pp. 9-14, 19-22, 27-40, 45-46, inclusive. From
Volume II were missing pp. 33-42, inclusive. There had also been
torn out a portion of one page and here and there paragraphs had
been carefully erased and then the place of the erasure heavily
blackened with a soft lead pencil so that these gaps were un-
decipherable.⁶

After three months more all of these pages but ten were recov-
ered, through the friendly offices of Mr. Carl Lomen.

On February 4th, 1924, Mr. J. I. Knight received from Mr.
Noice through the mail at McMinnville, Oregon, pages 9-14, 19-22,
27-40, 45-46 and the portion torn from page 41, all from Volume

⁵This refers to a later section of this chapter about Mr. Noice’s con-
tradictory stories concerning Ada Blackjack. Mr. Noice has told us he
now desires to withdraw the most serious part of these charges. But we can
not remove the discussion wholly from this book since the parts of the charges
which he leaves standing would be without motive were she not also guilty
of the charges he now wishes to withdraw. By thus leaving his present
charges inexplicable when divorced from his former accusation, he practically
leaves Ada Blackjack’s position unaltered in the minds of those who believe
him at all. We have, however, shortened the discussion greatly and have
omitted certain explanations that are less charitable to Mr. Noice than the one
he gives in his signed apology—that he was on the verge of a nervous collapse.

⁶ At the time he signed his retraction we asked Mr. Noice if he had kept
any memorandum of these passages when he erased them. He replied that
had not. They are, therefore, forever lost from the records. The
way in which portions were erased is illustrated
by the photograph printed opposite
p. XXII of the introduction to this book.