stefansson-wrangel-09-34-035

Blackjack -5-

Around this period I made a series of publicity
photographs of Noice. I know one of these appeared in the
rotogravure brown ink section of the N.Y. Times. I have one
print only of this set herewith. Unfortunately all of my neg-
atives of that era were destroyed in the flood of 19545 here in
Pound Ridge. At that time Noice also presented me with an Eskimo
sealskin suit with which I won a prize at a fancy dress party.

Noice must have been married when he made the Wrangel
voyage in 1923 if the wedding took place in 1922. he wasn't At any rate,
whether the marriage came before or after the relief trip,
Frances seemed, at first, proud of his success. In newspaper
stories released at the time, Noice's praise regarding the pluck
and courage of the Eskimo woman in maintaining herself alone on
the Island were marked. In fact, Frances asked me whether I could
not influence Mr. Thomas Dibble, then City Editor of the New
York Evening Journal, to run a feature on the success of Noice's
expedition as Mr. Dibble's sons were close friends of mine.
Mr. Dibble obligingly did this.

Apparently so much admiration and regard for Blackjack
began to pall with Frances after a while and I could sense that
it was beginning to make trouble between Frances and Noice.
There must have been a temporary separation as Frances--and her
imagination was vivid—--began putting Blackjack in a bad light.
On several occasions, in talking with me, she depicted the
Eskimo woman as an evil person---one who had been taken along
with the Wrangel Island group for immoral purposes. Even sus-
picioned Noice as involved with Ada on the return voyage through