August 10, 2018

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2018

“I can’t face the thought of the loneliness I’m going into…Can you come to Alaska with me?...Never did I enter upon any course with such a sense of necessity, of duty, as drives me into this Alaska trip.”
Rockwell Kent in letters to his wife, Kathleen

100 YEARS AGO

While aboard the Admiral Schley Kent wrote some letters, perhaps while in the ship’s salon where a picture of a “forgetful looking person” reminded him of that duty. “Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days imaginable,” he wrote to his friend, Carl Zigrosser, “ever so clear, so that the distant Rocky Mountains or the Cascade Range was visible. The islands fascinated him and the mountains were “most romantic and alluring with canyon and forest.”

Rocky played on deck for hours by himself while Kent viewed the scenery and played his flute. It would be difficult work creating a home place in the Alaska wilderness, and Rocky would be of only so much help. Kent would do the heavy work and his son would often have to entertain himself. Watching Rocky play on the steamship encourage the artist. “I’m relieved by the thought that I’ll be put to no trouble finding amusement for him in Yakutat.”

He was unsure of his welcome at his first stop. “I don’t know how I’ll find the community at Yakutat,” he wrote. He would scout it out to see if that was the place to settle. Kent had no idea where he would live. Even with his letter of introduction to cannery officials, he was uncertain. There were no guarantees. “In Seattle one of the firms that control the salmon industry of the place told me they wanted no strangers at Yakutat and that the natives would not readily believe me to be a harmless character,” he wrote. “But I haven’t taken that fellow’s word for it and I don’t believe the people of Alaska are as he’d have had me think.”

100 YEARS LATER

On August 8th the north wind arrived along Resurrection Bay. I awoke and was out early. The sun was up above the mountains surrounding Resurrection Bay poking in and out of a few low and fluffy clouds. That stiff north wind reminded us that summer was over as the prevailing winds started shifting, now arriving from the north. By mid-August the change is usually set. As Kent is traveling to Alaska 100 years ago today, the coastal areas – like today – were losing more than five minutes of light each day. Rain becomes more prominent, and after several days of wet, socked-in weather, it’s not uncommon to wake up to what we call “termination dust” or snow on the mountains tops. The migrating animals – whales and pelagic sea birds – have left or are leaving. Some mornings bring frost. It’s clear that summer is over and fall has arrived. Sourdoughs know they’d better start preparing for winter.

At home the bloom is dying on our Double Sitka Roses and the Cottonwood snowstorms have ended. The slight orange tint on the Mountain Ash berries foreshadows that soon they’ll morph to bright red. The raspberry, blueberry and current crops are late this year, but they’ll arrive soon. Fireweed explodes everywhere. The Rufus and Anna’s humming birds are scarce, but the recently fledged Black-Billed Magpies fly by squabbling and squawking. Signs of summer’s end are all around us.

I’ve traveled the Inside Passage – up and back – a few times on the Alaska ferries and dozens of times as a naturalist and lecturer aboard the cruise ships. I’ve worked on ships traveling from Vancouver and San Francisco. I’ve worked ships coming from Japan, stopping at Kamchatka, and sailing across the Bering Sea before stopping at Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, Seward, and then along the Gulf of Alaska to the Inside Passage. Departures are exciting, especially for those visiting Alaska for the first time. Leaving San Francisco and traveling under the Golden Gate Bridge on your way out to sea – waving at those high above you bidding you bon voyage – that’s an experience to remember. 

I can imagine Kent and his son leaving Seattle 100 years ago with the crowds on the dock waving farewell. For some it would be a permanent move to a strange land to start life over, to reinvent themselves. For others it would be a return to home and family. A few perhaps were like Kent, seeking solace and renewal in nature – artists and writers hoping the wild would help them produce a novel, poetry or paintings to excite the critics and the public. “I work with all my energy, with all my heart,” Kent wrote to Hildegarde. “I need success, I want greatness and fame…”

The cruise ships represent a cost-effective way to see large sections of the Alaska coast. The Alaska and Canadian ferries give you a better chance to stop at some of the smaller ports – but you need more time for such a trip. In the different ports, I’ve taken small boats into less traveled places. Some cruise ships heading north do the outside coast of Vancouver and the Haida Gwi (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and then duck into Ketchikan. That’s the quicker route but it can expose you to the winds and weather of the open Gulf of Alaska. Others do the Inside Passage for a more leisurely journey. I’ve watched the faces of passengers who view the stunning beauty of this place for the first time. It keeps my experience fresh, always reminding me that you don’t really see something until you’ve seen it for the fiftieth time. As I work this route, I imagine Kent and Rocky viewing these scenes for the first time.

PHOTOS (by Doug Capra)
1. A formation at Misty Fjords National Monument, south of Ketchikan. It's called New Eddystone Rock -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Eddystone_Rock
2. A cruise ship docked at Haines, not far from Skagway.
3. Jaw Point with Johns Hopkins Glacier in the distance at Glacier Bay National Park.
4. A scene of out Skagway of the White Pass, one of the routes to the Klondike during the 1898 Gold Rush.

NOTE -- Most of Kent's letters I quote (unless otherwise noted) are from the Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C. Most of the Kent-Zigrosser correspondence is at the University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt Library. Kent's letters to Hildegarde Hirsch are at Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Unfortunately, Hildegarde's letters to Kent have not been located, if they survive at all.