Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018 I woke up this morning – August 11, 2018 – made my coffee, had some breakfast, and watched the news. A hundred years ago at the same time Kent and Rocky were aboard the Admiral Schley anticipating their arrival later today in Yakutat.  Kent wrote letters to pass the time. Those to Hildegarde are descriptive and revealing. By the evening of August 5th the two travelers were in Petersburg where Kent sent off a few posts. During the next days at sea Kent sat on the upper deck “writing and reading and blowing my flute.” The passing scenery amazed him, especially the mountains with their sides “cloaked in dark spruce forests while their peaks, bare of trees, patched with snow, are up in the clouds.” The weather had been clear and warm, but after Petersburg it started to rain. “I think we’ll not find an intense cold on this coast,” Kent wrote, “and rain through the winter rather than snow.” His foreca...