Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018 Part 1 - Feb. 3 through 11, 1919 ABOVE -- This is the kind of weather Rockwell Kent experienced on Fox Island in January 1919 while Olson was in Seward picking up the mail. Temperatures below zero with fierce north winds as the sea smoke rises above Resurrection Bay. I took this sunrise photo in January or February 1999 -- twenty years ago. Capra photo. On Feb. 3, 1919 it’s been a month and a day since Olson left Fox Island to pick up the mail in Seward. Heavy, blinding snow today. No visibility in the bay. Kent and Rockie hear the whistle of a departing steamer but can’t see it – a concealed reminder that there’s mail waiting for them in town, and that the letters they have stacked up are not on that outgoing ship. By afternoon a thunder and lightning show – not common but an occasional event along Resurrection Bay – followed by rain and huge hailstones. “This lasts a few se