ENPages
stefansson-wrangel-09-16-012-001
C O P Y
161 West 75th Street, New York.
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Dear Stefansson:
I was pleased to know that you liked my review of the Wrangel book for I worked it out very carefully. The original information on Noice was from his notes and MS which he let me take to read. I made some notes at the time but I am not sure that I kept them. If I have, I can probably dig them out of the mess we are in just now.
I may have been wrong about his removing the pages at the time he sat down with his back to the body but it is my impression that he did. The sitting down to read the diary at all under the circumstances struck me as being very peculiar.
Noice was terribly distressed after your book appeared but when I saw him last he had recovered his balance, at least on the surface. He was emphatic in declaring that he had done no wrong intentionally.
Part of the material he let me take was a MS which he had prepared for publication but I think he has not yet found a publisher. It was a very interesting story of his journey to the Island, his impressions on arriving, etc. He also had extracts from Canadian papers with letters of the captain, who failed to get through, defending himself and taking a shot at you in return.
It may be that Noice told me in one of our conversations that he sat down with his back to the body and read the diary but I am not positive about his taking the pages out at that time. He probably did not actually read the diary at the time he found it but sat down and skimmed it over, so his saying that he did not read it till he was on the ship fits in all right. He seems to have been in a decidedly upset condition and there is no doubt that the finding of Knight dead rather knocked him out. So he would not be very clear as to just when he removed the pages. It seems likely that he removed them on the ship between Wrangel and Nome, but you have information that it was between Nome and Seattle, so perhaps it was. I will go over the matter and see if I can clear up my own statement as to the removal of the pages at Wrangel and write you again later.
Perhaps he will let me have the same material again.
Sincerely yours.
(Signed) F. S. DELLENBAUGH