APRIL 30, 2018 - How does one incorporate all this into a coherent narrative?

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

April 30, 2019

  

ABOVE -- A German edition of Wilderness: A Journal of quiet Adventure in Alaska.

A few months back a professor in China contacted me. He has been translating Rockwell Kent's Wilderness into Chinese. He gave me a list of questions he had regarding certain idioms and phrases. He was especially baffled by some of Lars Olson's diary entries. I provided answers, gave him the address of this website, and sent him several photos I've taken of various Fox Island scenes. 

BELOW -- Looking south from the ruins of the Kent cabin on Fox Island. Capra photo

Wilderness has been translated into several languages. Perhaps soon we'll have a Chinese edition. I notice many readers on this website from various countries around the world. If there's a translation of Wilderness available in your language, please send me a photograph like the one above. When I come to writing about the publishing of Wilderness, I'd like to present photos of various editions in different languages. Send the photo to capradr@yahoo.com with your name so I can give you credit.

This week I'm busy preparing for a presentation about this research on Saturday, May 4th for the Kenai Peninsula Historical Association Annual Meeting in Seward. It has been a challenge condensing the varied aspects of this story into one coherent narrative. It's easy telling the story of the "Quiet Adventure" as presented in Wilderness. I've followed the book day by day, aided by copies of the illustrated journal, and sections of Kent's letters that focus specific events of the "Quiet Adventure." To that I've added the chronological historical and social context, the events happening in Seward, Alaska, the U.S. and around the world. 

BELOW -- A page from Kent's September 1918 Illustrated Journal. Notice the sketch of the Orca pod that visited them with a description below.

The challenge is: How do I incorporate the confusing correspondence chronology between Rockwell and Kathleen?  The mail situation in Alaska at the time is so slow that the dates the letters are written have little connection with the dates they are read. For example, Kent writes a letter to Kathleen in early September. She doesn't get it and respond until late September or early October. During that interval, Kent writes other letters to Kathleen with no knowledge of her reactions -- and Kathleen writes more letters to Kent. There's no give and take communication. By the time letters arrive for each, the contents may have no connection to the contents of the many letters sent before. This is not only confusing for both Kathleen and Kent, causing much misunderstanding -- but it's also a challenge for me. 

 BELOW -- One 10-page letter of Kent's to Kathleen dated Feb. 12, 1919. He would mail 30-40 pages like this to Kathleen on each trip to Seward.

Another challenge? Presenting a relevant yet brief introduction to Kent’s life before Alaska which does justice to the personal and emotional baggage he brings with him into the wilderness. In terms of his relationship with Kathleen, this involves going back to their letters during the courtship and marriage – 1908-1918. There are many contexts to consider, especially Kent’s affairs with Jennie Bell Sterling and Hildegarde Hirsch. Kathleen’s story during this period has yet to be told in detail. I do give much credit to David Traxel’s biography, An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent (1980). Having gone through and transcribed hundreds of Kent’s and Kathleen’s letters, I am in awe of Traxel’s research. In the 1970’s, he spent much time at the Archives of American Art going through boxes of Kent letters and ephemera. During the 1980’s, I did the same – all  before the letters were put online for easier access. I’m just focused on the Alaska experience. Traxel covers Kent’s entire life – 1882-1971 – a Herculean task.

Kathleen’s letters are often difficult to read. She had little confidence in her writing ability and, her handwriting can be less readable than Rockwell’s. She’s often writing on both sides of onion-skin type paper. The condition of her letters varies from good to water damaged and completely faded. For many of those in between, only sections here and there can be deciphered. With my wife Cindy’s help, I’ve been able to read enough to figure out much of what’s going on.

ABOVE – Some of Kathleen’s letters to Rockwell are easy to read like this one, dated Sept. 12, 1918. BELOW – Other letters look like this or worse. Some are completely faded.

My challenge is to incorporate Kathleen's story within the context of her husbands “Quiet” and “Unquiet” adventure in Alaska. She has grown from the 19-year-old who reluctantly accepts her husband’s “transgressions” because she loves him. She urges him leave her and go to Jennie because she feels guilty about how much Jennie is suffering. Kathleen even wants to sell her jewelry to help support Jennie and her baby. By the time of the Hildegarde affair in 1916 – Kathleen now 25 years old – she’s had enough. Though she misses Kent when he’s often gone, she’s learned that she can take care of herself and the children. She deeply resents that her husband has taken Rockie with him to Alaska against her will. While living in New York City during Kent’s time in Alaska, she gains new self-confidence. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but she could live without him if she must and she implies as much. Hildegarde must go, she tells Kent. It’s either her or me. Rockwell begins to understand that Kathleen is  no longer the innocent teenager he married on New Year’s Eve 1908. In his letters she’s still his “girl” and “little mother.” He has raised her, he tells Kathleen. His language is often patronizing and condescending. He talks to her as parent would to a child. This is no longer acceptable to Kathleen. Their relationship must be one of mutual respect. Kent often writes of all the expectations he has of Kathleen. Now she tells him her expectations of him.

How does one incorporate all this into a coherent narrative?

BELOW -- From left to right: Jennie Bell Sterling, Kathleen Kent, Hildegarde Hirsch.

This week – in preparation for my May 4th presentation – I’m working to produce another updated, more coherent draft of the story with illustrations. Sometime after the presentation I’ll publish it on this website. In May I’ll also write about Kent’s show of his pen and inks in New York with the reviews, and his move to – “Egypt” – the name he gave his farm in Arlington, Vermont. "Egypt" would be the kind of reasonable isolation he required. There he needed no 18-foot dory with a broken-down, 100 lb., 3.5 horsepower Evinrude engine. There he would have no stretch of volatile fjord to cross. There he could more easily tame a gentle wilderness and embed himself away from the city's temptations with his wife and family. To Hell with an indifferent and hostile world that didn’t appreciate his genius. Let them come to him.