Before the Donaldson had even reached port, Noice’s lawyer had sold exclusive rights to Ada’s story to a newspaper for three thousand dollars. Noice instructed Ada and the crew not to speak with the press. He controlled the narrative, including the documents he had taken from the island.
What he did with Knight’s diary and with Ada’s papers was, by subsequent accounts, deliberate and damaging. He removed pages from the diaries. He blacked out sections. He censored material that did not serve the version of events he wanted to present. He later blamed Ada for the mutilations when the evidence of tampering was discovered.
In 1924, Noice published an article in which he accused Ada Blackjack of having neglected Knight — of refusing to visit her fox traps, of falsely claiming she couldn’t use a rifle while Knight starved. He claimed, or implied, that she had eaten food that would have saved Knight’s life. He said she had been “well and fat” when the Donaldson found her, which the weight record immediately contradicts — she weighed 90 pounds.
He also alleged, or had alleged, that she had refused to cook for Knight after he rejected a marriage proposal from her. The accusation placed the dynamic between Ada and Knight in a melodramatic frame — rejected suitor, vengeful caregiver — that served Noice’s narrative and for which no reliable evidence exists in the record.
The accusations were in print. Ada Blackjack, an Iñupiaq woman with no institutional standing, no publisher, and no public relations apparatus, was being publicly accused of contributing to a man’s death by the person who had led the rescue party.