NOVEMBER 14 - 16, 2018
ROCKWELL
KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100
YEARS LATER
by Doug
Capra © 2018
Nov. 14-15, 2018
Nov. 14, 1918 – Fox Island, Resurrection Bay, Alaska – Rockwell
Kent in his journal:
“This night Rockwell and I skated for the third time. Ah,
but it was glorious on the lake, the moon high above us in a cloudless sky, the
snow and ice on the mountain sides glistening and the spruces black. We skated together
hand in hand like sweethearts; going far to one end of the lake in the teeth of
the wind and returning before it like full-rigged ships.”
A hundred years later it isn’t quite as cold, but the
evening skies are clear and there is a Rockwell Kent moon above Resurrection
Bay.
Kent and Rocky have packed and are waiting for a window to
make the trip to Seward. Kent has learned his lesson about making that crossing
in his 18-foot dory with its heavy keel and its finicky 3.5 horse-power
Evinrude motor. Although packed and ready, he now realizes that he’s hostage to
that north wind. Their travel window could occur any time, “not for two weeks
or two months,” he writes, and adds: “I’ve packed blankets and several days’
food in a great knapsack so that if we’re driven to land somewhere we’ll not
perish of hunger.” He’s also concerned that the weather could strand them in
Seward for “days without number” and great expense. Rockie hasn’t had a haircut
since they left New York, and he now “looks like “a boy of the Middle Ages,”
Kent observes “with his hair cut to a line above his eyes…truly a handsome
fellow.”
Nov. 15, 1918 -- Fox Island, Resurrection Bay, Alaska – Rockwell
Kent in his journal:
“Still it blows, yesterday and today, cold, clear, and blue,
-- and the moon these nights stands straight above us and stays till dawn,
setting far in the north.”
Olson is miserable with the cold weather. He can’t understand
how Kent and Rockie can stand skating and wood cutting. For Kent, frigid Alaska
is nothing compared to a winter he spent on Monhegan Island in his small,
unfinished house “when on cold days the water pails four feet from the stove
froze over between the times I used them, and my beans at soak froze one night
on the lighted stove.” Of course, it’s only November in Alaska he will learn
later how really cold it can get on Fox Island with that north wind. At this
point he writes, “We love the weather here. While the cabin is drafty I pile on
fuel remorselessly.” Kent has Rockie change into this long underwear, but the
youngster complains about the heat, day and night.
“The days go on about as usual,” Kent writes, “varied only
by an occasional weekly or monthly chore and success or failure in my painting.”
The morning of Nov. 15th Kent found the north wind had moved his
heavy dory four feet. Olson helped him haul it up onto the land above the beach
and tie it down. That night it was so cold in the cabin that Kent couldn’t read
in bed – it was too far from the stove.
PHOTOS
The moon over Resurrection Bay at about 4:45 p.m. on November 14, 2018. Capra photo.
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