stefansson-wrangel-09-32-088r

THE WRANGEL ISLAND DOCUMENTS 375

which he had gained from his explorer son while he was at home
the two years between his first and last expeditions.

In spite of the shock and pain caused by the new statement of
Mr. Noice there could be no substantial change of opinion among
the relatives or among those well informed. True, we were not
as yet completely informed; ten pages were still missing from
Lorne Knight's diary. Conceivably there might be some informa-
tion in them that would materially alter one thing or another, but
hardly the fundamental reasons for the tragedy. There were also
the erased paragraphs which no one but Mr. Noice had seen. If
he had no memoranda of what these had contained before they
were erased, he at least might have a memory of them.

Mr. Knight nevertheless felt that some public denial should
be made immediately. He had previously suggested I ought to
make press statements in rebuttal of those being made by Mr.
Noice; and different members of the families of Fred Maurer and
Milton Galle were also of the opinion that we had been dealing too
leniently with Mr. Noice. My idea had been, however, that search
warrants or drastic legal action might result in the hasty destruc-
tion of documents and that moral pressure applied over a long
time would probably finally result in the surrender of nearly or
quite everything. I accordingly still maintained the attitude of
discouraging newspaper discussion when Mr. Knight, the father of
the man whose death was involved, sent me for approval a lengthy
statement which he wanted to give to the Associated Press or to
some magazine. We are printing here the portions of it which
relate immediately to Mr. Noice’s charges of February 11th.

Mr. Knight’s Statement

During the six months when Ada Blackjack was the sole com-
panion of our son Lorne until his death, there is nothing in his
diary to indicate that she did not do what she humanly could for
him and for herself. Lorne speaks in the diary of the fact that
he does not want her to take his rifle because she knows nothing of
how to use it. She bears this statement out in our personal con-
versation with her. Lorne tells in his diary of her efforts to get
food and her failure, and it is apparent that it was largely because
of her inexperience.

The mere human instinct in her would prompt her to exert her