WEDNESDAY, AUG. 7, 2019 VISIT TO FOX ISLAND WITH PHOTOS

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

Part 4 – Wilderness & the Alaska Paintings: The Reviews

Aug. 7, 2019

ABOVE – The tree stump at the entrance to the Kent cabin ruins as it looked in 2005. BELOW – That same tree as it looked in 2017. Today is worn down ever more.

On Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019 I spent the day on Fox Island courtesy of Kenai Fjords Tours. I needed to get back out there for some inspiration as I work my way toward the end of drafting this book. I did some hiking (visited the fox farm and cabin ruins), did some writing, and took some photographs. As you can see from the photos above, surface landmarks are always changing. Although I’ve taken hundreds of photos over the years, each time I visit the island is different. That fierce North Wind of winter that awed Kent picks up salt spray and stones that pulverize the landscape. In Wilderness, the artists writes about hearing those stones pounding the cabin walls and roof during storms. High tides combined with heavy rains and winds sometimes inundate the land between the shore and the lake. It’s clear that has happened to the area around most of the fox farm. Not so as much at the ruins of the Kent cabin site. It’s incredible that those ruins have survived at all.

It was in late August that Kent arrived in Seward and found Fox Island. Due to climate change Alaska is seeing record warm temperatures (Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019 it was 82 degrees here. Not a record – we’ve seen temperatures up to 90 in the last few years – but hot for this part of Alaska along the coast.) Spring comes earlier and winter later.  Below you’ll find some photos of Fox Island as it looks as of Aug. 7, 2019. It probably looked much like this when Kent arrived – except for the almost constant rain he later experienced. This summer we’ve had very little rain and about 125 forest fires – including a large one across the Harding Icefield from us in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

All the photos below I took on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019 on Fox Island.

Looking north from the beach near where Olson’s cabin was located.

Berries on Dwarf Dogwood plants by the large tree trunk that has fallen over the south wall of the Kent cabin.

ABOVE AND BELOW -- The cabin interior. The first is one Kent took looking south out of the large window he put in. (Rockwell Kent Gallery, Plattsburgh State University, NY). The second is a sketch from Wilderness looking west from in front of the stove on the east wall. You can see the stove to the right on the north wall and the door in the right hand corner.

I’ve stepped into the ruins of the Kent cabin and I’m looking west -- the view he would have gotten from his small window you see in the sketch.

From inside the ruins I’m looking south out what was the large window Kent put in.

Now I’m looking north right at the door. This is the side of the cabin with the stump and the magpie cage on the outside wall. Now a clump of alder grows there.

Devils Club with fall berries.

The lake at the end of the trail from Olson’s house. There is also a trail from the Kent cabin that joins this trail. That trail easy to find in the spring before all the vegetation comes in – but during my recent trip I start out but gave up. There’s so much brush, including lots of Devil’s Club, that the trail is hard to follow. Some blueberries are ripe and I did munch on a few throughout the day.

The next four photos are some of the tree trunk snags by the lake.

BELOW -- Looking south from the beach in front of the fox farm ruins. Bear Glacier is behind Callisto Head, the headland at the right. Notice the glaciers in the distance inside Aialik Bay beyond the mountains of the Aialik Peninsula, Kent puts those glaciers in some of his paintings.