Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 April 14, 2019 ABOVE -- The ruins of the Kent cabin in 1940. Photo by Dale Nichols, a Nebraska artist whose reading of Wilderness brought him to Alaska and in later years led him to a correspondence with the artist. The two women in the photo are his wife, and Mrs. Don Carlos Brownell. Kent was a friend of Brownell and often stayed at his house when he was in Seward. They later corresponded. Photo from the Resurrection Bay Historical Society collection. BELOW -- I'm standing at the at the site of the Kent cabin outhouse. You can see how over grown the area is today. You can barely see the southern headland of the cove. Photo by Bob and Alice Hunt, owners of the property on which the Kent cabin sat. Thorns and Wilderness The Final Alaska Letters Part 3 of 3 Feb. 16, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I’m jealous of you having planned to go skating with the cr...

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018-19 April 9, 2019 Part 2 of 3 – The Final Alaska Letters ABOVE – Fox Island Scene from the site of the Kent cabin ruins. I took this photo back in 1996. Within a year or two the twisted snags had disappeared. It always reminded me of Rockwell Kent’s painting below. The fierce north wind during winter in Resurrection Bay whips up the salt spray which shapes and structures the landscape, wears it down, and changes it radically year to year. Capra photo.  BELOW – Tierra del Fuego, Admiralty Gulf 1922-23 by Rockwell Kent. On Feb. 25, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I love you ever ever so dearly and you must be a very happy girl till I get home and need no one else to keep you good. That “no one else” refers specifically to his friend, George Chappell who has been looking out for Rockwell’s family, ironically at the artist’s request. Indeed, the artist has asked George to lo...