Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 March 2-5, 1919 plus Another Olson Story ABOVE – With the coming of the Alaska Railroad interest expanded in tapping the resources all along its route as well as encouraging settlement. The Seward Civic Fair of 1916 was part of that promotion. Photos like this became popular as Seward represented the Kenai Peninsula in spreading the word about the various possibilities of homesteading. Photo circa 1916, source unknown. Photos below of the Seward Civic Fair from the collection of the Seward Community Library & the Resurrection Bay Historical Society. On March 3, 1919 – before even mentioning Fox Island -- we see Kent the anarchist. One can’t easily define the anarchist movement of this period – there were many variations (See AnarchistModernism: Art, Politics, and the First American Avant- Garde by Allan Antliff (2001).  Kent’s friend, Carl Zigrosser, editor of t...

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 March 1-2, 1919 and… Late January letters from Carl Zigrosser and George Chappell ABOVE -- This is a river otter. Kent often mentions these animals but calls them sea otters. There may have been some sea otters in the area, but they had been hunted out and were only protected in 1911 under a fur sea treaty. Some considered sea otters extinct by 1918. BELOW -- Notice that the river otter has paws front and back. A sea otter has flippers as rear feet and paws in the front. I took these photos at least 20 years ago by the lagoon on the west side of the Seward Highway across from the Seward Small Boat Harbor. I often see river otters during my trips to Fox Island, and I've had some interesting encounters with them along the trails. Capra photos. “Fifteen brand-new canvases hang from my ridge pole waiting for pictures to adorn them,” Kent writes in Wilderness to begi...