Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

Saturday. January 26 th at 5 p.m. at the Seward Community Library The ‘Not-So-Quiet’ Adventure   Unpacking Rockwell Kent on Fox Island 100 Years Later.” “Brimming over with energy,” his friend Carl Zigrosser wrote, “he could and did wear out two wives. I salute all for their loyal and unselfish devotion.” Another of his friends, George Chappell, warned him that “ Perfection is always the peak beyond, and the way to it is full of bruises, but we can attain a kind of perfection by idealizing what we have, and still not lose sight of the great unattainable.” This wasn’t advice he wanted to hear.             The artist is Rockwell Kent II. This year is the 100 th anniversary of his stay on Fox Island in Resurrection during 1918-1919 with his 9-year-old son, Rockie. If you’ve read his book, Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska , published in 1920, you’ve only been exposed to half the story....

ABOVE - Olson’s cabin was located at the northern end of the fox farm. From the cabin site there is a trail east to the lake. This side of the lake is the small pool where Olson and the Kent’s got their fresh water. There are some freshets that come down from the mountain into the lake, but today the pool and the lake are much more brackish than they were in Kent's day, probably due to the drop in land after the 1964 earthquake.   Capra photo. NOTE– I’ll call this Part 5 of 5 of an expanded version of the lecture I delivered at the Anchorage (Alaska) Museum of History and Art on Nov. 9, 2018 as part of a one-day Rockwell Kent Symposium. But from this point on the entries are really just a continuation of the article as I continue to expand it. If you’ve reading this website you realize there is much more the story that’s contained on this website. I’ve tried to incorporate some of that information in this draft, but I advise those interested to check out...