A diary kept by Errol Lorne Knight on Wrangel Island beginning from the crew's arrival and ending shortly before his death.
The front cover of volume 1 of Lorne Knight's Diary. Stef Mss-90. Rauner Special Collections Library.
About the Collection
The diary of Errol Lorne Knight (1893–1923) was kept during the Wrangel Island Expedition, the ill-fated attempt organized by Vilhjalmur Stefansson to establish territorial control over the island for Canada. Impressed by the strength, resilience, and survival skills that Knight had demonstrated in previous Arctic explorations, Stefansson selected the 28-year-old Knight as the unofficial leader of the crew, which also included Allen Crawford, Milton Galle, Fred Maurer, and Ada Blackjack. The harsh conditions of Wrangel Island and the lack of provisions, however, ultimately took their toll on Knight, who succumbed to scurvy and died on June 23, 1923.
Knight begins his diary on September 15, 1921, two days before landing on Wrangel Island, and continues it through March 23, 1923, two months before his death. It provides a detailed account of his day-to-day experiences, including hunting, crew activities, “general duties” of camp, and observations on the weather. At times the entries are terse and matter-of-fact, and at other times provide expressive insight into their emotional lives. For example, Knight records the crew’s meager holiday celebration on December 24, 1922, with a hint of sarcasm: “…it is Xmas Eve by the diaries of others and we are celebrating (?!!?) by having an extra hard bread or so apiece.” Some of the diary’s most harrowing entries are those in which Knight documents the gradual toll that scurvy takes on his body. One poignant entry, written on March 23, 1923, notes the contradiction between Knight’s still strong spirit and weakened body: “Caught myself whistling this A.M. Not that I dont want to whistle, God knows. However this is in spirits only for I am as weak as a cat.” Throughout the expedition’s small celebrations as well as its dramatic turning points, Knight’s voice provides a human connection to the crew’s time on Wrangel Island.
In addition to chronicling Knight’s activities, the diary provides details about the ill-treatment of Ada Blackjack, the Iñupiat woman hired by the crew in Nome, Alaska, to sew, cook, and wash clothes on the expedition. Often referred to in the diary as “the woman” or “the seamstress,” Knight’s references to Blackjack can be dismissive and at times delineate clear abuse. On September 29, 1921, for example, Knight observes that “she acts, so it seems to me, like a child of 8 or 10 years of age.” On November 23 of the same year, he records that the “seamstress refuses to patch a pair of boots to day so I tied her to the flag pole until she promised to repair them.” Later on, however, the degree to which Knight depended on Blackjack is clear. In January 1923, Crawford, Galle, and Maurer left the deteriorating Knight in Blackjack’s care to trek across the ice to Siberia in search of aid, but they were never heard from again. At this point, entries about Blackjack favor her successes in trapping, hunting, taking care of camp, and tending to Knight, which she did until his death. Blackjack begins her own diary, also digitized by Dartmouth Libraries, on March 23, 1923, the date of Knight’s last entry.
The story of Knight’s diary does not end with his death. On August 20, 1923, Ada Blackjack was rescued by Harold Noice and the crew of the Donaldson, and Noice took Knight’s and Blackjack’s diaries into his possession. While in his hands, Knight’s diary was mutilated, rendering portions ranging from a few words to several lines illegible by thick, dark lines. Despite efforts by the Fogg Art Museum and the FBI to read the material, the content of the excised text remains unknown. As such, the diary not only offers direct evidence of the crew’s experiences but also of the expedition’s aftermath and the efforts made by Stefansson, Noice, and others to shape the narrative of Wrangel Island.
The original manuscript, as well as undigitized correspondence regarding attempts to decipher the mutilated text, may be examined by requested Stef Mss-90: Errol Lorne Knight papers on his diary.
Acknowledgments
Portions of this diary were transcribed in the winter of 2024 by students in Professor Ross Virginia’s course ENVS 15: Environmental Issues of the Earth’s Cold Regions. Ella Moore '27 continued to work on transcribing and indexing the diary.
Rights Statement
Dartmouth Libraries assigns a Creative Commons BY-NC license to the digital work and associated web site.