Area natives confirmed that Knight and his men had been driven ashore and stranded by a winter storm. After the second winter on this island, illness had reduced the survivors to only two men. The natives recorded that each day the two men would go down to the shore, look off in the distance and wait for rescue. At length, one of the men died and the second was so exhausted that he died while digging his friend's grave. Knight's disappearance still remains one of the Arctic's enduring mysteries.
Marble Island is well within sight of the mainland.
Whatever the reasons, Knight's disastrous expedition only served to reinforce HBC's decision to do nothing to expand its holdings around Hudson Bay.