August 22, 2018
ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018 Before we get Kent and Rocky to Seward and their life on Fox Island, I want to go into more detail about his affairs, his concept of solitude, and how Rockie fits into the Alaska trip. Most accounts say that Kathleen objected and that Kent fought her and won. I think it’s more complicated, as the letters demonstrate. But first, let’s put this into a larger context. The Great War was like a glacier that advanced over the terrain and cleared away many old-world certainties. The seeds of these changes were planted in the years before the war with Darwin, Freud, Einstein and others. By 1918 as the war ended, many wondered if it had all been worth it with so many dead and wounded. The world-wide flu took many more lives. Women would soon get the national vote. Alaska and some other western states and territories had already done that. Prohibition seemed certain. Alaska had gone dry on January 1, 1918. Ot...
