Noice alleged, in substance, that Ada had refused to check her fox traps, that she had claimed she could not use a rifle when in fact she could, and that she had neglected Knight’s needs. He claimed that the diary showed her “washing her hair and making beads” while Knight was in need. He said she was “well and fat” when the Donaldson arrived — a claim that contradicts her recorded weight of approximately 90 pounds at rescue.
He also alleged, or suggested, that she had refused to nurse Knight after he rejected a marriage proposal from her. This allegation is the most melodramatic element of his account and the one with the least support in the available evidence.
The accuracy of Noice’s access to the documentary record was itself compromised by his own actions. He had taken Ada’s diary, Knight’s diary, and the other expedition documents. He had removed pages from those diaries. He had blacked out sections. He then attributed the mutilations to Ada — claiming she had damaged the documents to hide what they said.
This framing — accusing Ada of exactly the document manipulation that Noice himself had done — is a specific rhetorical move that has a name in the study of disinformation: it preemptively attributes the critic’s own behavior to the person the critic is attacking. If Ada had claimed that the documents were incomplete or had been tampered with, Noice’s prior accusation would have framed her defense as confirmation of her guilt.
The weight of evidence against Noice’s version includes several elements. Ada’s weight at rescue was 90 pounds, directly contradicting “well and fat.” Knight’s father, who had the most personal reason to want someone to blame for his son’s death, specifically defended Ada and called the accusations cruel and unfounded. The families of the three men who died on the ice, who were also interested parties in understanding what had happened, did not, by the available record, endorse Noice’s accusations.