Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 March 6-10, 1919 plus “Pets and Paradise” ABOVE – A photo taken in early March 2019 by Jim Pfeiffenberger titled “Fjord Morning.” Kent admired and painted the alpine glow on the mountains across the bay to the west as the sun rose above the mountains behind his Fox Island cabin. At sunrise on Thursday, March 6 th , Kent and Rockie bathe naked in the bay during a low tide. It was so low that Kent ran “dry shod” all around the north headland of the bay – a trip Olson thought couldn’t be done. Returning, they take Olson’s boat, Rockie rowing, to the point Kent visited. He brings with him his entire painting outfit. Rockie thrusts the dory's bow onto the beach. “Rockwell in jumping ashore timed it badly, slipped, and fell full length into the surf on the ground swell, the dory almost riding over him. I roared with laughter – to his great fury.,”  Kent writes. (That expe...

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 March 2-5, 1919 plus Another Olson Story ABOVE – With the coming of the Alaska Railroad interest expanded in tapping the resources all along its route as well as encouraging settlement. The Seward Civic Fair of 1916 was part of that promotion. Photos like this became popular as Seward represented the Kenai Peninsula in spreading the word about the various possibilities of homesteading. Photo circa 1916, source unknown. Photos below of the Seward Civic Fair from the collection of the Seward Community Library & the Resurrection Bay Historical Society. On March 3, 1919 – before even mentioning Fox Island -- we see Kent the anarchist. One can’t easily define the anarchist movement of this period – there were many variations (See AnarchistModernism: Art, Politics, and the First American Avant- Garde by Allan Antliff (2001).  Kent’s friend, Carl Zigrosser, editor of t...