NOVEMBER 5 - 7, 2018

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018

Nov. 5 - 7, 2018

The November 9^th Kent Symposium at the Anchorage Museum went well. I’ll give more information about that later and tell you more about the other presenters. I’ll also publish on this site the text of my presentation sometime this month. Getting my presentation in shape got me behind somewhat on this blog, but I should get up to date by the end of this week. As I write this, on Monday, Nov. 12 – we have a typically rainy, foggy, dismal day in Seward – not unlike those that Kent talks about this time of year 100 years ago. For a painter who needed light, days like this could be frustrating.

Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1918 -- It has been eight days since Olson left for Seward. Kent is waiting anxiously for his return -- for the old man will have the mail – and Kent is desperate for letters. It doesn’t’ look good. Overcast skies with rain and some snow make it so dark that they eat their meals by lamp light. “Over the dead, still air comes the roar of pounding seas,” Kent records. “Immense and white they pile on the black cliffs of Caine’s Head.” When Kent can get enough light, he paints; when he can’t, he draws. He hasn’t seen the sun for days. “On the last fine day, it showed but an hour at noon,” he writes. It has been cold enough for ice to form on the lake behind their cabin, but with the rain the ice has melted. They captured a porcupine – “this stupid animal,” Kent calls it. Rockie is delighted but his father tells him he can’t keep it. “Nothing could be more unattractive than a porcupine’s mangy looking back of coarse hair and quills,” Kent writes, “and his back is all he ever shows to visitors.” Rockie cries and is despondent most of the day. Kent records this “unusual event” – Rockie’s crying -- in his journal as a punishment. He asks Rockie if this is how he wants to be portrayed in the Alaska story. They set the porcupine free but he returns to his cage, appearing to Kent to be “rather an amusing pet.” The animal eventually wanders off. Kent takes care of the animals for Olson. One of the goats gnaws at Kent’s hip pocket as he’s fed. Kent and Rockie often peer out their west window to see if Olson’s small vessel is in sight. They often hike to the south end of the beach where, depending upon the visibility, they might catch sight of Olson’s boat returning.

The old Swede finally arrives back on Fox Island on Wednesday, Nov. 6^th – not only with the mail but with the news that peace was at hand. This became known as the “False Armistice.”

Word reached the U.S on Nov. 7^th that the war was over. Trading stopped on the New York Stock Exchange floor, church bells rang, sirens sounded, department stores closed, and crowds of people swarmed city streets in celebration. When news outlets received an official denial and announced it, people on the street didn’t want to believe it. In New York City crowds were so angry at the denial that an angry mob attacked the Associated Press offices, and in Times Square throngs destroyed copies of the Evening Sun and other newspapers that carried the denial story.

When Kent hears of false report he writes -- “Thank God!” – but adds irony: “At the same time there would be a pitiless justice in the continuance of such a war to the extermination of all those men to whom mass bloodshed appeals as something heroic and those who fighting against their will were still ready to kill others rather than stand by their own principles. No man can be made to fight. No man fought in this war entirely against his will and, by God, as he would do unto others so let it be done unto him.” As a socialist, he adopts their position that capitalists promoted and benefited from the war and it was the workers who fought and died. He wrote: “If this war had appreciably diminished the proportion of the mass of men whose only religion is patriotism so servile that at the beck of their masters they give their lives in fawning gratitude of a country that had already robbed them of everything else, then in the name of everlasting Peace and for the greatest good of mankind the war had justified itself.”

Harsh words. Kent added political comments like this that were in the original Wilderness to the 1970 special edition. The book would never have been published in 1920 with comments like those stated above.

Days blend into days and Kent often combines them in his book. Olson has brought back lots of mail, including packages with “warm woolen things” for himself and Rockie. Kathleen, his mother and his Auntie Jo have made sweaters, socks, caps and sent them. They also get coffee, chocolate, and a box of sewing items. Carl Zigrosser has sent Kent a book about the Kenai Peninsula. “It was like Christmas here!” Kent writes. By Nov. 7^th the rain has turned into a wet and deep snow. They experience a rare thunder and lightning storm. They hear but not see a steamship blowing as it enters the bay not far from them, but the snowstorm hides it. Kent is reading the life of poet and artist William Blake. “That reading before I sleep is now my nightly practice and it is my one recreation and a real delight,” he writes. Rockie is writing a long imaginative story “in his own queer spelling.”

I’ll get back into the letters in the next few entries. Kathleen has received those ranting letters Kent sent her during his mid-September stay in Seward – in response to her taunting letters to him. You may want to review this past entry and those before and after it to better understand my upcoming entries about the November letters. Kent’s moods vary greatly from joy and exuberance to despair and agony. The rain and darkness don’t improve his occasional somber disposition, neither does Olson’s absence nor the poor mail service. In his better moods, he writes beautifully illustrated letters to his children. He misses his family dearly. After reading to Rockie at night he waits for his son to fall asleep – then he rereads letters from Kathleen and Hildegarde and descends into despair as he pens pages of letters late into the early morning hours.

https://rockwellkentjournal.blogspot.com/2018/09/early-to-late-september-2018.html

Olson tells Kent of the gossip in Seward. “Thanks to an amateur detective, Seward had rejoiced for a short time in rumors of a German spy on Fox Island,” Kent writes. “I told Olson that the authorities might still come and remove me.” Olson got angry and said: “I’d like to see them try it! We could take to the mountains with guns, and more them one of them would never try the thing again.” Kent writes: “And then he went on to tell me how in Idaho he had tracked for days and weeks a notorious gang of outlaws and horse-thieves and at last run them to earth – one of his most thrilling and, I believe, absolutely true stories of his adventures.”

I developed that story into a scene for my play. As you’ll see, I’ve taken some dramatic license – but I believe I’ve captured the essence of Olson’s story-telling and the reasons why Kent and Rockie loved him so much.

AND NOW THE WORLD AGAIN

By Doug Capra © 2018

DRAFT – Oct. 2018

ACT II

SCENE 2

‘THEY TRIED’EM AND HUNG’EM”

CHARACTERS

Kent

Olson

Rockie

Citizen #1

Citizen #2

LIGHTS UP

KENT

(To Audience) It’s early October now. Some days I wrote nothing in the journal because there’s nothing to write but that it rained.

OLSON

Rained?  Rained like…

ROCKIE

Rained like Hell! Put that down.

KENT

Olson keeps a journal, too.

OLSON

Weather for yesterday – Rained…like…Hell.  Ditto for today.

KENT

The storms are fierce here.

ROCKY

The wind shakes our cabin all over the place.

KENT

Even our protected cove seethes when that north wind hits from every direction.

ROCKY

Rocks from the beach come flyin’ up and hit our cabin. Wham!

KENT

Olson calls the squalls “wullys.” He wanders over to our cabin often. He seems lonely and wants to talk. So I stop my drawing.

(Olson arrives for a visit.)

ROCKY

Oh, Mr. Olson! Father, Mr. Olson’s here.

KENT

Every time he’s in Seward, he says, people ask about me.

CITIZEN #1

Fox Island? What a God-forsaken spot. Why’d he move out there with you?

OLSON

Seward’s the God-forsaken spot, you damn fools. Fox Island’s a paradise.

CITIZEN #2

Why doesn’t he rent a cabin in town and send his kid to school?

OLSON

That’s his business. You don’t understand artists. He wants to be alone. You think Shakespeare wrote with jackasses like you peeking over his shoulder?

CITIZEN #1

That’s why he came to Alaska -- to be alone?

OLSON

I’ll tell you what he told me. He came to Alaska because he loves the North. Said he loves snowy mountain tops...

OLSON

He craves the snow-topped mountains, the dreary wastes…

KENT (with Olson. He can’t help joining in the scene)

I crave the snow-topped mountains, the dreary waste. And the cruel seas.

OLSON

Oh, you learned that lesson, huh? After you and the boy nearly drowned?

KENT

Oh, yes. When I first came to this island I never thought it would be so difficult going back and forth

OLSON

We’re on the edge of the world here -- so much space.

KENT

Precisely. Infinite space begins here. Skies are clear and deep with hard horizons. This is no soft land. It speaks eloquently of eternal mysteries. I need this Northern nature...

OLSON

He loves this place. And what he loves he must possess.

KENT (Joins in) And what I love I must possess.

OLSON

Some people in Seward don’t understand that.

KENT

Neither do some of my artist friends. They don’t know why I came to such place. They think it’s my paucity of imagination to have to be confronted with virgin country to get something startling into my pictures!

OLSON

Fools!

KENT

I want to own what I like. (To Olson) And I guess you do too.

OLSON

Damned right I do.

KENT

It’s a flesh and blood and spirit love for this life that bring me here. I can’t satisfy my passion by peeking through keyholes or looking at picture books.

ROCKIE

Then why do I have to read all those books?

KENT

Because for every page you read I’ll read a page of Robinson Crusoe to you.

ROCKIE

Oh, yeah.

OLSON

(To Rockie) Just do your homework. Don’t want to end up an ignorant fool like me.

KENT (to Olson)

You’re certainly no ignorant fool – though you do have a creative way of spelling.

ROCKIE

Me, too.

KENT

I know. A few spelling lessons beginning tomorrow.

ROCKIE

See what you did, Mr. Olson!

KENT

So, Lars – what else to they ask about me in Seward?

CITIZEN #2

What kind of stuff does he paint out there?

OLSON

Sometimes he’s working on a mountain. Other times I see it’s glacier or a tree stump. For some reason he likes tree stumps. Can’t tell you why.

KENT

Olson loves Fox Island and he wants the world to notice it. That’s why he brought me here to paint. I wrote an article for the Seward Gateway about the island that featured

him.

OLSON

(Takes a folded newspaper article out of his pocket and reads) “One finds among the living beings on Fox Island a peace that is rare in the modern war-wracked world.” Yes. Peace and quiet.

(To Kent)

Here -- you read. My eyes aren’t so good anymore.

KENT (On the lecture platform)

“Know, people of the busier world, that there -- on that wild island in Resurrection Bay -- is to be found through winter and summer a true Northern Paradise, and a host to welcome you with as warm and kind a heart as ever beat.”

(Pause)

I don’t know how the people of Seward took my article.

OLSON

I liked it. My thanks to you.

KENT

It was the least I could do, Lars.

(To the Audience)

I’ve never met a man quite like him.

(To Olson)

You’re not the typical “picturesque’ rustic character. That image’s a sham anyway. When you work and live with them as I’ve done -- you find they’re generally damnably stupid and coarse.

OLSON

(Annoyed)

Stupid and coarse, huh?

KENT

Generally, yes, Lars. Sorry, but that’s the truth. I’ve got my hands dirty and sweated with them. But you...you, Lars – your tact, understanding, kindness, courtesy -- put you outside all classes -- where true men belong.

OLSON

(Beaming)

Well, if you say so. (Thinking) But my friends aren’t stupid and coarse…well, maybe some are…well maybe…

KENT

Some in Seward may laugh at you.

OLSON

To Hell with them!

KENT

Absolutely, Lars. The herd laughs at people like us. But the old-timers in Seward, the real Alaskan sourdoughs -- they know you for what you are and respect you as one of the last of a dying breed -- the pioneer.

OLSON

I’m the last of a dying breed...and some days I feel like it.

KENT

Speaking of the “herd” – what’s this about the rumor you heard in Seward about a German spy on Fox Island.

OLSON

Someone must have heard about what happened to you in Newfoundland. These are bad times. I warned you about those signal fires.

KENT

The bonfires?

OLSON (To the Audience)

He’s been signaling a friend in Seward -- a German, too -- with bonfires and receiving lantern signals in return.

KENT

We’re not spying. I’m just anxious to know when the war will end.

OLSON

You’ll get your German friend in trouble, too. People have noticed.

KENT

I’m prepared -- if the “authorities” come to “take me away.” I’ve experienced it before.

ROCKY

But I don’t want to leave Fox Island, Father. Are they coming to get us?

OLSON

Let’s see them try it! We’ll take to the mountains with guns, and if they come after us, more than one of them will be sorry.

ROCKY

How will we live up in the mountains?

OLSON

We’ll live off the land.

ROCKY

Can we do that?

OLSON

You bet. Back in ‘83 in Idaho I was a bounty hunter. All alone I tracked a gang of outlaws -- four of them, murderers all -- for three weeks. They were well-supplied and thought I’d run out of food and turn back. So they relaxed. Big mistake. I lived off the land, and I tracked those scoundrels to the edge of Hell and brought them back.

ROCKY

Wow! Did you shoot any of them?

OLSON

I nicked one of them a few days out. After that they kept their distance.

(Dramatically)

Then, one moonless night the six of’em were joking around their campfire I snuck up on them. They were so shocked to see me that they just turned themselves in.

ROCKY

Wow!

OLSON

On the way back I ate the rest of their food and made THEM live off the land. Taught them to set snares and dig up roots. They didn’t like that much.

ROCKY

Wow!

OLSON

(To himself)

And in rained like Hell back then, too.

ROCKY

Did you get a reward?

OLSON

You know what I got? And I was damned grateful for it. I got back. Alive. That was enough.

ROCKY

Wow!

OLSON

I did get the bounty -- five hundred dollars, apiece -- and there were eight of’em. That money helped me grubstake my first trip to Alaska.

(Rocky and Kent have noticed Olson’s tale getting taller and taller)

ROCKY

Wow! What happened to the outlaws when you got back?

OLSON

(Dramatically)

They tried’em and hung’em. Lined’em up on the scaffold -- all ten in a row. Carefully slipped a noose around each of their necks, cinched’em up tight and then...

(Dramatic pause)

BOOM! -- they let loose the trap doors, down they went, and SNAP -- all twelve got their necks broke.

KENT

All right, Lars. An even dozen now, huh? I think that’s enough.

OLSON

Tried to bury’em in the outlaw graveyard up on a hill, but there wasn’t enough room for all fourteen of’em. Some folks say that on cloudy, dark nights...so the just stacked’em up one on top’a the other and…

KENT

That’s enough, Lars.

ROCKY

Oh, please Father.

KENT

I don’t want you having nightmares.

OLSON

(Whispering to Rocky)

Another time son.

KENT

Meanwhile, we’ve got firewood to chop.

OLSON

And I’ve got goats and fox to feed.

KENT

(To Rocky)

Let’s do something useful.

ROCKY

I’ve got holes in my socks. Can you fox them, Father?

(Kent groans, Rocky & Olson laugh)

BLACKOUT

PHOTOS

Letters reproduced below are from the online Rockwell Kent Papers at the Archives of American Art.

       Lars Matt Olson in his cabin on Fox Island with two of his goats. Photo by Rockwell Kent.