NOVEMBER 5 - 7, 2018
ROCKWELL
KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100
YEARS LATER
by Doug
Capra © 2018
Nov. 5 - 7, 2018
The November 9th 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. 6th – 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. 7th 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. 7th
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.
Comments
Post a Comment