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Wilderness

Rockwell Kent

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WILDERNESS A JOURNAL OF QUIET ADVENTURE IN ALASKA BY ROCKWELL KENT

WILDERNESS A JOURNAL OF QUIET ADVENTURE IN ALASKA BY ROCKWELL KENT

WITH DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR AND AN INTRODUCTION BY DOROTHY CANFIELD G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ROCKWELL KENT PLATES ENGRAVED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF WILLIAM G. WATT THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS, NEW YORK To old L. M. Olson and young Rockwell Kent of Fox Island this journal is respectfully dedicated The author acknowledges the courtesy of the owners of his drawings in permitting their reproduction in this book: MRS. ERNEST I. WHITE ROBERT

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

H ad jesting Pilate asked “What is Art?” he would have waited quite as many centuries for an answer as he has for the answer to his question about Truth. For art to the artist, and art to the rest of us, are two very different things. Art to the artist is quite simply Life, his life, of which he has an amplitude and intensity unknown to us. What he does for us is to thrill us awake to the amplitude and intensity of all life, our own included. And this is a miracle for which we can never be thank

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PREFACE

PREFACE

M ost of this book was written on Fox Island in Alaska, a journal added to from day to day. It was not meant for publication but merely that we who were living there that year might have always an unfailing memory of a wonderfully happy time. There’s a ring of truth to all freshly written records of experience that, whatever their shortcomings, makes them at least inviolable. Besides the journal, a few letters to friends have been drawn upon. All are given unchanged but for the flux of a new par

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CHAPTER I DISCOVERY

CHAPTER I DISCOVERY

W e must have been rowing for an hour across that seeming mile-wide stretch of water. The air is so clear in the North that one new to it is lost in the crowding of great heights and spaces. Distant peaks had risen over the lower mountains of the shore astern. Steep spruce-clad slopes confronted us. All around was the wilderness, a no-man’s-land of mountains or of cragged islands, and southward the wide, the limitless, Pacific Ocean. A calm, blue summer’s day,—and on we rowed upon our search. So

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September fourteenth.

September fourteenth.

I stopped writing, for the fire had almost gone out and the cold wind blew in from two dozen great crevasses in the walls. The best of log cabins need recalking, I am told, once a year, and mine, roughly built as it is, needs it now in the worst way. Some openings are four or five inches wide by two feet long. We’ve gathered a great quantity of moss for calking, but it has rained so persistently that it cannot dry out to be fit for use. Well, it rains and rains and rains. Since beginning this jo

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Wednesday, September twenty-fifth.

Wednesday, September twenty-fifth.

It stormed from the northeast throughout the day. After putting the cabin in order and hanging out our bedding to dry by the stove—for we had found it very damp—I set about cutting a large spruce tree whose high top shut out the light from our main windows. A few more still stand in the way. The removal of all of them should give us a fair amount of light even in the winter when the sun is hid. It occurs to me that it may be rather fortunate that my studio window looks to the south. I’ll certain

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Thursday, September twenty-sixth.

Thursday, September twenty-sixth.

These are typical days, I begin to feel sure, of prevailing Alaska weather. It rains, not hard but almost constantly. Nothing is dry but the stove and the wall behind it; the vegetation is saturated, the deep moss floor of the woods is full as a sponge can be. We took the moss that weeks ago we’d gathered and spread along the shore to dry and commenced with this sopping stuff the calking of our cabin. It went rapidly and the two gable ends are nearly done. What a difference it makes; to-night wh

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Friday, September twenty-seventh.

Friday, September twenty-seventh.

At last it’s fair after a clear moonlit night. I worked all day about the cabin calking it and almost finishing that job, splitting wood, and working with the cross-cut saw. Added stops to the frame of our door, made a miter box, and cut my long strips brought from Seward last trip into pieces for my stretcher frames. And Rockwell all this time helped cheerfully when he was called upon, played boat on the beach, hunted imaginary wild animals with his bow and arrow of stone-age design, and was as

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Saturday, September twenty-eighth.

Saturday, September twenty-eighth.

Beginning fresh but overcast the day soon brought us rain,—and it is now raining gently as I write. And yet we accomplished a great deal, clearing of undergrowth a part of the woods between us and the shore, felling three more trees, and cutting up a monster tree with the cross-cut saw. At dinner time Olson ran in with the greatest excitement. On the path in the woods near the outlet of the lake he had seen at one time five otters. They came from the water and advanced to within twenty feet of w

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Sunday, September twenty-ninth.

Sunday, September twenty-ninth.

The Lord must have been pleased with us to-day for the grand clearing up we gave this place of His. Olson has begun to work toward me in clearing the still wild part of the intervening space between our cabins. It begins to look parklike with trees stripped of limbs ten or twelve feet from the ground and the mossy floor beneath swept clean. With the cross-cut saw I finished up the giant tree we felled a few days ago; and then, the ground being clear, I cut the large tree that kept so much light

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Monday, September thirtieth.

Monday, September thirtieth.

The morning brilliant, clear, and cold with the wind in the north. I promised Rockwell an excursion when we had cut six sections from a tree with the cross-cut saw. It went like the wind. Then with cheese, chocolate, and Swedish hard bread in my pocket for a lunch we started for the lowest ridge of the island that overlooks the east. We had always believed this to be a short and easy ascent until one day just before supper we tried it in a forced march and found, after the greatest exertions in

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Tuesday, October first.

Tuesday, October first.

T o-day it rained! We attended first to our fascinating chores, plying the cross-cut saw as the drizzle fell. Then we went to work as artists, Rockwell with his water colors and I with my oils. Rockwell has a number of good drawings of the country here and of the things that have thrilled him. Pop! The cork of my jug of new made yeast has just struck the ceiling. That brew has been a part of this day’s work. Hops, potatoes, flour, sugar, raisins, and yeast; stewed and strained and bottled. To-da

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Wednesday, October second.

Wednesday, October second.

Incessant, hard rain. The two artists at their work a good part of the day, Rockwell making several new drawings in his book of wonderful animals. We bathed and I washed the accumulated clothes of several weeks. And to-night Olson came for a long call. He’s a good story teller and his experiences are without end. And so closes this day—with the rain still pouring monotonously on the roof....

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Thursday, October third.

Thursday, October third.

To-day was fair at sunrise, cloudy at nine o’clock, and showery all the rest. We worked again with the beloved cross-cut saw, setting ourselves an almost unattainable task—and then surpass ing it. And I cleared the thicket for a better view of the mountain to the south; and in the afternoon felled another large tree. Stretched canvass for a while; and painted and drew, and felt the goddess Inspiration returning to me. DAY Olson, Rockwell, and I, with levers and blocks, turned and emptied the thr

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Friday, October fourth.

Friday, October fourth.

A gloriously lovely day, a cloudless sky and the wind in the north. That puts life into men! Up at sunrise, we two. Before breakfast the axe was going, and afterwards we brought down two mighty trees. (The trees of this part of Alaska are not to be compared with the giants of the Western States. Two feet is a large diameter.) Then I painted for a while futilely, the green and wind blown sea, the pink mountains, snowy peaks, and golden morning sky. Rockwell and I couldn’t restrain our spirits and

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Saturday, October fifth.

Saturday, October fifth.

A hard day full of little bits of work. Sawed up a tree alone ,—to punish Rockwell! for not studying. Caulking the east side of the cabin—the last side. Painted, baked, and built myself an arrangement out-of-doors to sketch in comfort. I sit on the board with my palette—a box end—secured before me and my picture above it. Rockwell took his punishment so to heart that in the afternoon he read ten pages in his book. All of to-day has been overcast, but with a clean, refreshing atmosphere. In the a

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Monday, October seventh.

Monday, October seventh.

Yesterday I wrote nothing in the diary—there was nothing to write, but that it rained. “Rain like Hell” Olson’s journal doubtless reads,—and ditto for to-day. The storm is even harder now. The wind strikes our cabin first from the west, then north, east, and south. The surface of the cove is seething under the cross squalls; that is called the “wullys.” A boat not strongly managed would be whipped round and round. Olson has been much in to see us, lonely old man! I drop my drawing while he is he

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Tuesday, October eighth.

Tuesday, October eighth.

RAIN! But what difference does it make to us. Everyone is in a good humor. The house is warm and dry; we’ve lots to eat and lots to do. Olson’s dory was again half full of water so we turned her and the skiff over. I stretched canvass and primed it and finished Anson’s “Voyage Around the World” a thrilling book. Late this afternoon it began to clear; the sun shone and we were presently at work with the saw—only to be driven in again by the shower. I expect fair weather to-morrow. But—— WILDERNES

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Wednesday, October ninth

Wednesday, October ninth

Fair weather is still as far away as ever, unless a sharp but cloudy afternoon and sundown with brilliant light in the western sky spell change. Olson says the foxes will not eat to-night and that this is invariably a sign of change to good days—that in bad weather they eat and in fair they abstain. It poured in the morning and we worked indoors. After dinner we all moved a lumber pile that stood on the shore abreast of our cabin to a place nearer Olson’s—this only to better our view of the wate

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Thursday, October tenth.

Thursday, October tenth.

It’s raining! All day has been overcast, but sharp and clear. It was for us all a day of hard work. We cleared up the woods between Olson’s cabin and ours carrying one large pile of brush from our door yard to the beach and burning another huge one. That was a wild sight as night came. It had become a great fire of logs burning steadily and lighting up all the woods around. It is still burning in the pouring rain. We sawed a little—always more than keeping pace with our consumption of wood. Rock

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Friday, October eleventh.

Friday, October eleventh.

This day we should have been in Seward. It was calm although it rained from time to time. Olson offered to tow us across to Caine’s Head; but, the rain coming up as we were about to start in the morning, we waited till afternoon, started, proceeded half a mile, encountered engine trouble, and finally ignominiously rowed home, I pulling Olson and his motor and Rockwell bringing in our own dory. If it had not been so late we would have kept on. We have a magpie. I saw one hop into Olson’s shed, qu

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Saturday, October twelfth.

Saturday, October twelfth.

A mild and lovely day on our island but in the bay a breeze from the north that would have made our rowing to Seward difficult. Still we wait with our things assembled for the trip. We shall go at the very first good chance. This morning Olson cleared the limbs from the trees about us to ten or twelve feet from the ground. Only the tall, clean trunks are now between us and our mountains across the bay. I painted most of the afternoon. My canvas is still quite impossible—rough and absorbent. We b

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Sunday, October thirteenth.

Sunday, October thirteenth.

(I still keep to my chronology until we find out from Seward where we stand.) A wonderfully beautiful day with a raging northwest wind. I must sometime honor the northwest wind in a great picture as the embodiment of clean, strong, exuberant life, the joy of every young thing, bearing energy on its wings and the will to triumph. How I remember at Monhegan on such a day, when it seemed that every living thing must emerge from its house or its hole or its nest to breathe the clean air and exult in

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Tuesday, October fifteenth.

Tuesday, October fifteenth.

Yesterday we left the island. The day was calm though cloudy, and at times it rained. Olson towed us to Caine’s Head. From there we made good time Rockwell rowing like a seasoned oarsman, as indeed he has now a right to be called. We stopped at the camp where we had in August left our broken-down engine, and brought that away with us, as well as some turnips and half a dozen heads of beautiful lettuce grown on that spot. By night it was raining hard and blowing from the southeast. We spent the e

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Thursday, October seventeenth.

Thursday, October seventeenth.

Yesterday in Seward was about as every other day. We spent it between letter-writing in our hotel room and visiting from store to store. It poured rain and blew from the southeast. We spent our evening with the German. We have planned with him to signal back and forth from Seward, particularly to send me the news of peace. If I can distinguish, with glasses a high-powered electric light that he will show from a house on the highest point in the town, then, by means of the Morse code with which I

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Friday, October eighteenth.

Friday, October eighteenth.

The night is beautiful beyond thought. All the bay is flooded with moonlight and in that pale glow the snowy mountains appear whiter than snow itself. The full moon is almost straight above us, and shining through the tree tops into our clearing makes the old stumps quite lovely with its quiet light. And the forest around is as black as the abyss. Although it is nearly ten o’clock Rockwell is still awake. It is his birthday—by our choice. His one present, a cheap child’s edition of Wood’s “Natur

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Saturday, October nineteenth.

Saturday, October nineteenth.

To-day was raw and cloudy, mild and sunny; in the morning windy, in the afternoon dead calm so that the hills were reflected in the bay. The men have left, I am glad to say, not that they were in themselves at all objectionable, but it somehow did violence to the quiet of this place to have others about. Emsweiler slaughtered one of the goats for Olson, so there’s now one less of us here. I felled a large tree to-day and later sharpened the cross-cut saw preparatory to cutting it up. To-night th

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Sunday, October twentieth.

Sunday, October twentieth.

It has been a beautiful, clear, cold, violent northwest day. I’ve painted on and off all day with wood cutting between. One can’t stop going in such weather, and out-of-doors you can’t stand still for it is too icy cold and windy. Rockwell and I have just now, eight o’clock, returned from down the beach where we went to look for lights from Seward. But we could distinguish nothing meant for us. The moon has risen and illuminates the mountain tops—but we and all our cove are still in the deep sha

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Monday, October twenty-first.

Monday, October twenty-first.

It is so late that I shall write only a little. To-day was again wonderful, a true golden and blue northwest day. I have painted and sawed wood, and built myself a splendid six-legged saw horse. Olson thinks I have already cut my winter’s supply of wood—but it seems to me far from it. Rockwell has been most of the day at his own animal book, making some strange and beautiful birds. This morning the ground was frozen with a hard crust. It did not thaw throughout the day, and again to-night it is

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Sunday, November third.

Sunday, November third.

To-day was gloriously bright and clear with a strong northwest wind. The mountains are covered with snow, beautiful beyond description. I painted in-and out-of-doors continuously all the day except when Rockwell and I plied the saw. It is no little thing to have one’s work on a day like this out under such a blue sky, by the foaming green sea and the fairy mountains. Three days go by. It rains and hails and snows, and then is quiet. Over the dead, still air comes the roar of pounding seas. Immen

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Thursday, November seventh.

Thursday, November seventh.

A true winter’s day with the snow deep on the ground and the profound and characteristic winter silence of the out-of-doors to be sensed even in this ever silent place. At earliest daylight began a heavy thunderstorm with lightning all about and a downpour of hail. It occurred intermittently throughout the morning.... I did the washing, using Olson’s washboard and getting the clothes nearly white. Olson is full of amusing gossip. To the curious in Seward who asked him why I chose to be in this G

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Friday, November eighth.

Friday, November eighth.

It is so late that I half expect to see the dawn begin. I have been working on a drawing of Rockwell and his father—and it looks ever so fine. Whew! just at this moment the wind has swept down upon our cabin and blown the roof in as far as it would with great creaking yield,—and then passed on sucking it out in its wake to such a spread that a board that lay across overhead like a collar-beam has fallen with a crash and clatter,—and Rockwell sleeps on! The wind does blow to-night, and it doesn’t

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Thursday, November fourteenth.

Thursday, November fourteenth.

W e’re ready to go to Seward the moment the weather moderates—which may be not for two weeks or two months. I’ve packed blankets and several days’ food in a great knapsack so that if we’re driven to land somewhere we’ll not perish of hunger. And this trip while it may be carried out speedily may on the other hand strand us days without number in Seward and cost three or four times that many dollars. The wind is still in the North, the days are wonderfully beautiful, and the nights no less. This

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Saturday, November sixteenth.

Saturday, November sixteenth.

Still it blows, yesterday and to-day, cold, clear, and blue,—and the moon these nights stands straight above us and stays till dawn, setting far in the north. It is really cold. Olson is quite miserable and wonders how we can keep at our wood cutting and skating. But I think I shall never live in such cold again as in that first winter on Monhegan in my unfinished house when on cold days the water pails four feet from the stove froze over between the times I used them, and my beans at soak froze

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Sunday, November seventeenth.

Sunday, November seventeenth.

We jumped from bed in a hurry this morning believing that the apparent stillness boded a calm day and a fit one for the Seward trip. But the sea beyond our cove was running swiftly and within two hours there was a gale of wind and some snow. Cold it was and dark. We’d hardly put the lamp out after breakfast, before we lighted it again for late dinner. Still in that short daylight I painted and Rockwell skated and painted, and we both cut a lot of wood. I’ve spent the evening writing, trying an a

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Monday, November eighteenth.

Monday, November eighteenth.

To-day a storm from the southeast. It blows like fury. Breakfast by lamplight, work until dark, then dinner—in the neighborhood of three o’clock or maybe four—more work, and a nap, for I felt exhausted. Rockwell goes to bed and is read to, I work a while longer, then a light supper for which Rockwell gets up again, then—the dishes washed and R. again in bed—a call on Olson for three quarters of an hour, leaving there at ten, to work again till some wild hour. What a strangely arranged day! I’m d

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Tuesday, November nineteenth.

Tuesday, November nineteenth.

A dreary, dreary, a weary day. But I’ve worked or somehow been ceaselessly busy and now I’m about ready for my nightcap of reading and bed. Four canvases stretched and primed stand to my credit and that alone is one day’s work in effort and conquered repugnance. What a tedious work. My Christmas letters are written, nearly all of them. And as Christmas draws near it seems more and more impossible without home and the children. It will be a huge make-believe for one of our family here! ROCKWELL’S

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Wednesday, November twentieth.

Wednesday, November twentieth.

To-morrow we hope to get off—although it still storms. There’s a terrific sea running but even such a sea would trouble us less than the chop of the north wind. The wind above all else is to be feared here. I painted little—it was so dark. Somehow on these short days it is difficult to accomplish much. Certain things have to be done by daylight: the chopping of wood, carrying of water from a hundred yards away, lamp filling, and some cooking. I made myself a lot of envelopes to-day and second-co

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Friday, November twenty-second.

Friday, November twenty-second.

Both yesterday and to-day are to be recorded. The porcupine is dead! And yesterday he endeared himself so to us, playing about in the house with the utmost content. The cause of his death we cannot know—unless it was our kindness. Rockwell with Olson’s leather mittens on did carry him about a good deal. Of course they are creatures nocturnal and we had planned to let him have his regular hours for exercise and feeding, Rockwell delighting in the plan that he should stay with him in the woods at

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Saturday, November twenty-third.

Saturday, November twenty-third.

It dawned calm with rain hanging in the air. We hurried with our breakfast in the hope that we should get off; but within an hour at the turn of the tide the northwest wind whipped down from the mountains and the rain fell in torrents. And now at a late hour of the night it still rains although the wind has fallen. We felled a tree to-day and partly cut it up. Although it was dismally dark all the time I managed to paint a little. And I wrote much and drew in black and white. Rockwell has been i

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Sunday, November twenty-fourth.

Sunday, November twenty-fourth.

Olson declares this day to be Sunday and in honor of the day he gave me a cup of milk for junket. And in honor of the day, whatever it is, I worked so hard that now I’m tired out. The day began with snow and continued with it. It blustered and blew much as a day in March and the bay looked wild. And now to-night it is clear and starlight. Will the north wind begin to blow again to-morrow? The chances are that it will and Seward and the sending of my mail will be as far away as ever. I painted wi

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Monday, November twenty-fifth.

Monday, November twenty-fifth.

It rages from the northeast! The bay is a wild expanse of breakers. They bear into our cove and thunder on the beach. A mad day and a wild night. And Seward is as far off as ever! It is now my hope that a steamer will go to Seward before me. Olson finds by his diary that none has been seen to go there for two weeks. I began two new pictures to-day trying for the first time to paint after dark. My lamp is so inadequate in this dark interior—it burns only a three-quarter inch wick—that I can work

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Tuesday, November twenty-sixth.

Tuesday, November twenty-sixth.

After a terribly stormy and cold night the day was fair with the wind comfortably settled in the north as if he meant to stay there. Only at night has it been calm. To-night again is so and if I had not Rockwell on my hands to make me timid I’d go at night to Seward. Olson was a real Santa Claus to-day. First he gave us Schmier Kase, then a good salt salmon—two years old which he said we’d “better try”—and to-night a lot of butter churned by him from goat’s milk. It looks like good butter and, w

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Wednesday, November twenty-seventh.

Wednesday, November twenty-seventh.

To-day, if we had known how the weather would turn, we should have started. It was lovely, cold but fair with the wind in the south-west. It had in the morning all appearances of a heavy blow and we failed to get in shape to take advantage of its calming as the afternoon advanced. At any rate I have a little picture of it with the soft haze of the day and the loose clouds. I painted besides on the large canvas of Superman begun a few days ago. Olson lent me his “grub-box” to use, a wooden box of

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Thursday, November twenty-eighth.

Thursday, November twenty-eighth.

This continual waiting is getting upon my nerves. Most of to-day I spent tinkering with the engine. It goes now—in a water barrel. The trouble with the best of these little motors is that the moment they get wet they stop, and they are attached at such an exposed place, on the stern, that they will get wet if there’s much of a sea. Then you’re in a bad fix for it’s impossible to make any headway rowing with the engine—or rather the propeller—dragging. Most of the engines are hung right on the st

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Friday, November twenty-ninth.

Friday, November twenty-ninth.

Last night a terrific storm from the east. A few blasts struck the house with such force that it seemed our thin roof could not stand it. Of course it is really quite strong enough but the noise of those sudden squalls bearing along snow and ice from the tree tops is simply appalling. In the morning it became milder but continued to rain and snow and for most of the day to blow heavily from the eastward. In the afternoon to my despair a steamer entered for Seward; she’ll doubtless leave at dayli

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Thursday, December fifth.

Thursday, December fifth.

N ovember thirtieth we arose before daylight. It was a mild, still morning and the melting snow dripped from the trees. Without breakfast we set about at once to carry our things over to the boat. Olson was aroused and turned out to help. There’s always much to be carried on a trip to Seward; gasoline, oil, tools, my pack bag—containing clothes, heavy blankets, and spare boots,—and the grub box Olson had given me packed with mail, books, grub, and the flute. The engine was in good order and star

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Thursday, December fifth (Continued).

Thursday, December fifth (Continued).

M ild rainy, snowy, sleepy—this first day back at home. I’ve done little work and dared look at but one picture—that of Superman—and it appears truly magnificent. The sky of it is luminous as with northern lights, and the figure lives. After all it is Life which man sees and which he tries to hold and in his Art to recreate. To that end he bends every resource straining at what limits him. If he could only be free, free to rise beyond the limits of expression into being! at his prophetic vision

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Friday, December sixth.

Friday, December sixth.

I’m reading a little book on Dürer. What a splendid civilization that was in the Middle Ages, with all its faults. To men with my interests can anything be more conclusive proof of the superiority of that age to this than the position of the artist and the scholar in the community? Let me quote from Dürer’s diary. (Antwerp, a banquet at the burgomaster’s hall.) “All their service was of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats. All their wives were there also. And as I

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Saturday, December seventh.

Saturday, December seventh.

Late! Now that we have a clock—I stole one in Seward—we live by system, our hours are regular. The clock I set by the tide, marking the rise of the water in the new-fallen snow. We rise at 7.30. It is then not yet sunrise but fairly light. Breakfast is soon cooked and eaten. To start the blood going hard for a good day’s work we spring out-of-doors and chop and split and saw in the glorious, icy north-wind. Then painting begins. I have scared Olson away—poor soul—but I make it up by calling on h

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Sunday, December eighth.

Sunday, December eighth.

Log cabins stuffed with moss should be wonderful in the tropics. I’m about frozen. On this work table I must weight my papers down to keep them from flying about the room. And the wind is icy; it is bitterly, bitterly cold. Olson says we need expect no colder weather than this all winter. Of course we don’t really mind it. The stove is red hot and we may go as close to it as we please, and the bed is warm—except towards morning. At night I move my jugs of yeast and cider toward the stove, fill t

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Monday, December ninth.

Monday, December ninth.

It blows worse than ever, and it is colder. All day the blue sky has been hidden in clouds of vapor and flying spray. The bay seethes and smokes and huge breakers race across it. It is truly bitter weather. Olson to-night ventured the prophecy that this was about the culmination of winter—but I know Olson by now. I cut another tree this morning to release the one of yesterday and both fell with a magnificent crash. Then we went to work with the cross-cut saw and stocked our day’s wood. Olson cal

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Wednesday, December eleventh.

Wednesday, December eleventh.

Yesterday was too gloomy a day for me to risk a page in this journal. As to weather it was another fierce one, cold and windy. As to work accomplished—nothing. Olson in his cabin, on such a day, is a treat to see. I open the door and enter. There he sits near the stove, a black astrakhan cap on his head and the two female goats in full possession of the cabin. Nanny the milch goat is a most affectionate creature. She lays her head on Olson’s lap and as he scratches her head her eyes close in bli

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Friday, December thirteenth.

Friday, December thirteenth.

In the midst of letter writing I stop to note down a dramatic cloud effect. That’s the way the day’s work goes. If I’m out-of-doors busy with the saw or axe I jump at once to my paints when an idea comes. It’s a fine life and more and more I realize that for me at least such isolation—not from my friends but from the unfriendly world—is the only right life for me. My energy is too unrestrained to have offered to it the bait for fight and play that the city holds out, without its being spent in a

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Saturday, December fourteenth.

Saturday, December fourteenth.

A pretty useless day. No work accomplished but the daily chores. What is there to say of such a day. Olson brought over his letter to Kathleen to-night and read it to us. It’s just like him to be really himself even at letter writing. The letter is full of nice humor. “She’ll think what kind of an old fool is that,” he said, “but what do I care. I’ll just say whatever I feel like saying.” And he always does. In a mild way he lives Blake’s proverb, “Always speak the truth and base men will avoid

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Sunday, December fifteenth.

Sunday, December fifteenth.

This is another day that is hardly worth recording, one that would not be missed from a life. It’s time something were again said about young Rockwell who is the real, live, crowning beauty of the community. Weeks have passed since I last recorded his fresh delight in everything here. It is the same to-day. For hours he plays alone out-of-doors. Now he’s an animal crawling on all fours along the trunk of a tree that I have felled, going out upon its horizontal branches as the porcupines do, hidi

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Tuesday, December seventeenth.

Tuesday, December seventeenth.

Once a miner died and presently found his way to the gates of heaven. “What do you want?” said St. Peter. “To come in, of course.” “What sort of man are you?” “I’m a miner.” “Well,” said St. Peter, “we’ve never had anyone of that kind here before, so I suppose you might as well come in.” But the miner once within the gates fell to tearing up the golden streets of heaven, digging ditches and tunnels all over the place and making a frightful mess of it all. At last a second miner presented himself

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Wednesday, December eighteenth.

Wednesday, December eighteenth.

There’s a little bucket of dough that stands forever on the shelf behind the stove. Sour dough is made with yeast, flour, and water to the consistency of a bread sponge and then allowed to stand indefinitely. For all that you take out you add more flour and water to what’s left in the bucket and that shortly is as fit for use as the original mixture. Alaskans use it extensively as the basis for bread and hot cakes. You add but a pinch of soda and a little water to the proper consistency and it’s

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Thursday, December nineteenth.

Thursday, December nineteenth.

T his day is never to be forgotten, so beautiful, so calm, so still with the earth and every branch and tree muffled in deep, feathery, new-fallen snow. And all day the softest clouds have drifted lazily over the heaven shrouding the land here and there in veils of falling snow, while elsewhere or through the snow itself the sun shone. Golden shadows, dazzling peaks, fairy tracery of branches against the blue summer sea! It was a day to Live,—and work could be forgotten. So Rockwell and I explor

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Friday, December twentieth.

Friday, December twentieth.

The beautiful snow is fast going under the falling rain! With only five more days before Christmas it is probable we’ll have little if any snow on the ground then. A snowless Christmas in Alaska! This day was as uneventful as could be. Part of the morning was consumed in putting a new handle into the sledge hammer. It was too dark to paint long, really hardly an hour of daylight. These days slip by so easily and with so little accomplished! Only by burning midnight oil can much be done....

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Sunday, December twenty-second.

Sunday, December twenty-second.

Both yesterday and to-day it has poured rain. They’ve not been unpleasant days, however. Occasional let-ups have allowed us to cut wood and get water without inconvenience. This morning Olson, fearing that a continuance of the mild weather would melt the ice in the lake and send his bags of fish to the bottom, went out to the center of the lake where they hung suspended through a hole in the ice and brought them in. But so precarious has the ice become that he carried a rope and took me along in

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Monday, December twenty-third.

Monday, December twenty-third.

Up to this morning the hard warm rain continued, and now the stars are all out and it might be thought a night in spring. At eight-thirty I walked over in sneakers and underwear for a moment’s call on Olson, but he had gone to bed. And now although we’ll have no snow the weather is fair for Christmas. If Olson believes, as he says, that Christmas will pass as any other day he is quite wrong. The tree waits to be set up and it will surely be a thing of beauty blazing with its many candles in this

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Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve!

We’ve cleaned house, stowed everything away upon shelves and hooks and in corners, moved even my easel aside; decorated the roof timbers with dense hemlock boughs, stowed quantities of wood behind the stove—for there must be no work on that holiday—and now both Rockwell and I are in a state of suppressed excitement over to-morrow. What a strange thing! Nothing is coming to us, no change in any respect in the routine of our lives but what we make ourselves,—and yet the day looms so large and magn

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Christmas Day on Fox Island.

Christmas Day on Fox Island.

It is mild; the ground is almost bare and a warm rain falls. First the Christmas tree all dripping wet is brought into the house and set upon its feet. It is nine feet and a half high and just touches the peak of the cabin. There it stands and dries its leaves while Rockwell and I prepare the feast. SUPERMAN Both stoves are kept burning and the open door lets in the cool air. Everything goes beautifully; the wood burns as it should, the oven heats, the kettle boils, the beans stew, the bread bro

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Saturday, December twenty-eighth.

Saturday, December twenty-eighth.

For the first time in days the sun has risen in a clear sky and shone upon the mountains across from us. It is colder, for ice has formed again on the tub of water out-of-doors. But there is a little wind. I am writing in preparation for Olson’s trip. He too is making ready. Food for the foxes is on the stove for many days’ feeding, his engine gets a little burnishing—it’s no insignificant voyage to Seward in the winter. If only it holds out fair and calm until a steamer comes! There’s the hitch

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Sunday, December twenty-ninth.

Sunday, December twenty-ninth.

Squirlie’s birthday party. Squirlie is seated in a condensed milk box. At his back hangs a brown sweater. About him stand his presents consisting chiefly of feathers. The table is spread with the feast in shells and the whole is brilliantly illuminated by a Christmas tree candle. Long life to Squirlie and may he never fall to pieces nor be devoured by moths!...

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Monday, December thirtieth.

Monday, December thirtieth.

Yesterday it rained gently, to-day it pours. I sit here with the door open and the stove slumbering—such weather in this country that the world believes to be an iceberg! But in Seward and on the mountains no doubt it is snowing enough. To-day I made so good a drawing that I’m sitting up as if the flight of time and the coming of morning were no concern of mine. It is half-past twelve! New Year’s Eve! Tuesday. This is the tenth anniversary of Rockwell’s parents and I have kept it as well as I co

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Sunday, January fifth.

Sunday, January fifth.

Olson is still away. It is wearing to wait this way in hope,—for we will hope even if the wind blows and the snow falls. And so it has done. The day following Olson’s departure it was wonderfully fair and calm, but the next day, it being the day he should have returned, a heavy snowstorm set in. And to-day with less snow there was more wind,—not so much that he could not have come but enough that he didn’t. We walked down the beach and scanned the bay with the glasses, and up to dark I looked co

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Monday, January sixth.

Monday, January sixth.

With Olson still away and the mail with him what can there be to report. It snows. It is so mild that we walk about hatless, coatless, mittenless. Drip, drip, drip, goes it from the eaves continuously. The snow has fallen from the trees. On the ground it lies deep and heavy. To-morrow maybe we shall take to snowshoes. Rockwell and I each took a trip along the beach to look for Olson. As I stood there peering into the haze toward Seward a head arose from the water close to me. It was a seal. He l

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Wednesday, January eighth.

Wednesday, January eighth.

Two more days and Olson still away. I’m furious at him. Yesterday he could well have come, to-day it has been impossible. We seem to do little here but wait. Even at the height of to-day’s storm I found myself continually going to the little window to look for a boat. Rain and snow, rain and snow! Ah, if only we had our mail here—then these warm, white days would be delightful. Yesterday we wore our snowshoes for the first time, but only to tramp down the cove and look toward Seward. The only re

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Friday, January tenth.

Friday, January tenth.

One hour ago it was as beautiful a moonlit night as one ever beheld. The softest veils of cloud passed the moon and cast over the earth endlessly varied, luminous shadows. The mountain tops, trees, rocks, and all, are covered with new snow; the valleys and the lower levels are black where rain has cleared the trees. It is so beautiful here at times that it seems hard to bear. And now at this moment the rain falls as if it had fallen for all time and never would cease. Oh Olson, Olson! Is it anyt

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Monday, January thirteenth.

Monday, January thirteenth.

Of the three days that have again passed two have been quite fair enough for Olson to have come. Both yesterday and to-day Rockwell and I made frequent trips down the shore to look for him. It is terribly depressing to have your heart set upon that mail that doesn’t come. I begin to think that some other cause than the weather holds Olson away. It is possible that the steamer we saw going to Seward was no mail steamer, and that Olson, who has gone for his pension money, is waiting for a mail. I

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Wednesday, January fifteenth.

Wednesday, January fifteenth.

Yesterday to begin with a snowstorm and then a clear, gray day. To-day blue sky in the morning, a north wind and bitter cold; gray again at noon and mild. By the geological survey report of Kenai Peninsular, January should average in temperature at Seward sixteen degrees. From now on it must average close to zero to give us sixteen for the month. Here it’s not as cold as New York. Rockwell bathed to-night standing within six feet of the open door. I have definitely decided that Olson stays for s

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Thursday, January sixteenth.

Thursday, January sixteenth.

Well, after to-day there remains no doubt that Olson stays away purposely—unless he’s sick or dead. Rockwell’s theory that Seward has been totally swept away by a terrible fire, with every man, woman, and child of its inhabitants, I disproved to-night. We walked down the beach and there were the lights of the great city brighter it seemed than ever. Either there has been no mail boat at all since early in December or there has been no mail from Juneau whence Olson’s “check-que,” as he calls it,

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Saturday, January eighteenth.

Saturday, January eighteenth.

Two beautiful days, these last. And to-night the wind blows and the snow falls and it is very cold. The days are uneventful. We journey many times down the beach over our snowshoe trail. That’s our out-of-doors diversion,—to look up the bay toward Seward. But the view is beautiful. Loftier mountains, more volcano shaped are about Seward, and they’re dazzling white. Yesterday Rockwell found otter tracks crossing from the salt water to the lake,—a lot of them. It’s wonderful to think that those fi

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Tuesday, January twenty-first.

Tuesday, January twenty-first.

The north wind rages to-night. It is cold and clear starlight. With the violent wind-gusts the snow sweeps by in clouds-sweeps by except for what sweeps in . Over my work table it descends in a fine, wet spray so that I’ve had to cover that place with canvas and work elsewhere. A wild day it has been and a wild night is before us. And yesterday was little brother to it. These days are wonderful but they are terrible. It is thrilling now with Olson absent to reflect that we are absolutely cut off

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Thursday, January twenty-third.

Thursday, January twenty-third.

Sometimes the smoke goes up the flue—and sometimes down. And that’s not good for the fire. I sit within six inches of the stove with a frozen nose and icy feet. The wind sifts through the walls. Now, with our moss calking shrunken and dried and shriveled further with the cold, our cabin would be light without windows. These are so far the coldest days of winter. Although it blows straight from the north, whence only fair weather comes, the day is dark with drifting snow cloud high. The water of

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Saturday, January twenty-fifth.

Saturday, January twenty-fifth.

It is bitterly cold weather, as cold continuously as I’ve ever experienced. Both yesterday and to-day the wind has been exceptionally violent and the air full of flying snow. Both of Olson’s water barrels—in the house—have frozen solid. One bulged and burst the bottom rolling itself off onto the floor....

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Sunday, January twenty-sixth.

Sunday, January twenty-sixth.

A day of hard work with Rockwell in bed for a change. Just a little stomach upset—and he’s all right now. Felled a tree and cut up fifteen feet of it, taking advantage of this glorious day. It was much milder than for days it has been and it still holds so to-night. There’s no wind and that makes ever so much difference in the cabin. Now if it will hold calm and mild for a day we’ll see whether or not Olson is yet ready to return....

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Tuesday, January twenty-eighth.

Tuesday, January twenty-eighth.

I’m reading “Zarathustra,” “Write with blood, and thou wilt learn that blood is spirit.” So that book was written. Last night I made a drawing of Zarathustra leading the ugliest man by the hand out into the night to behold the round moon and the silver waterfall. What a book to illustrate! The translator of it says that Zarathustra is such a being as Nietzsche would have liked himself to be,—in other words his ideal man. It seems to me that the ideal of a man is the real man. You are that which

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Wednesday, January twenty-ninth.

Wednesday, January twenty-ninth.

Alaska can be cold! Monday broke all records for the winter. Tuesday made that seem balmy. It was so bitterly cold here last night in our “tight little cabin” that we had to laugh. Until ten o’clock when I went to bed the large stove was continuously red hot and running at full blast. And yet by then the water pails were frozen two inches thick—but ten feet from the stove and open water at supper time, my fountain pen was frozen on the table, Rockwell required a hot water bottle in bed, the fox

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Thursday, January thirtieth.

Thursday, January thirtieth.

A splendid day of wood cutting. It was milder and quite windless in our cove, although in the bay there were whitecaps. A light snow had begun to fall by noon and it continues. To increase our lead on the weather we set to work upon a twenty-eight inch tree. We had to throw it somewhat against its natural lean and it was a terrible job. The wedge would not enter the frozen tree and when it at last did it wouldn’t lift the great mass that rested on it. Only after an hour’s continuous pounding wit

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Saturday, February first.

Saturday, February first.

Again the days are like spring. Yesterday began the thaw and today continues it with rain most of the time. So we’ve stayed within doors, Sir Lancelot and my lordship working here at our craft. I have just completed my second drawing for the day. One a day has been the rate for a month—but yesterday the spirit didn’t work. But the news! A great, old tramp steamer entered yesterday. That must carry mail and freight and send Olson back to us. If only it were a regular liner I’d know for sure. It i

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Sunday, February second.

Sunday, February second.

It’s before supper. Rockwell, who has just run out-of-doors for a romp, calls at this moment that he has lost his slipper in the snow and is barefooted. Out-of-doors is to us like another room. Mornings we wash in the snow, invariably. And with a mug of water in hand clean our teeth out there—and this in the coldest weather. We scour our pots with snow before washing them, throw the dish water right out of the door, and generally are in and out all day.... It is surely nonsense to think that cha

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Monday, February third.

Monday, February third.

We are in the second month of Olson’s absence. To-day it stormed mostly; heavy snow in the morning. Through the thick of it we heard faintly a steamer whistle. It seemed to be receding, outward bound. At four o’clock while a light snow fell the lightning played merrily and thunder crashed. It is like this: snow for half an hour, then rain—silence and calm for a few minutes. Suddenly huge hailstones pelt the roof, for all the world like rocks. This lasts a few seconds, there’s a fierce gust of wi

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Tuesday, February fourth.

Tuesday, February fourth.

It has been so changeable to-day that we are still uncertain of Olson’s intentions. We snowshoed down the beach in the beautiful, soft, new snow so at least to have a look toward Seward. There lay the bay calm and beautiful—and spotless. The scale of things is so tremendous here that I’ve little idea how far we shall be able to see the little, bobbing boat when it does come. We sawed a lot of wood to-day bringing our pile clear up into the gable peak. It becomes a mania seeing the pile grow. In

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Wednesday, February fifth.

Wednesday, February fifth.

A beautiful snowstorm all the day and to-night, still and mild. Rockwell has been out in it all day dressed in my overalls and mittens. He plays seal and swims in the deep snow. We built a snow house together. It is now about seven feet in diameter inside and as cozy as can be. I’m sure Rockwell will want to sleep there when it’s finished. A curtain of icicles hangs before our little window. I have carefully figured the cost of our living here from the food bills, all of which I have kept. I hav

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Friday, February seventh.

Friday, February seventh.

Yesterday, THE SUN! For how many days he might have been shining at us I don’t know, for it has been cloudy. However at noon it was all over the ground about us and shining in at my window. What a joyous sight after months of shadow! To-night the sun at setting again almost reached us. And yesterday as if spring had already come we begin the day with snow baths at sunrise. Ha! That’s the real morning bath! And to-day again. We step out-of-doors and plunge full length into the deep snow, scour ou

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Saturday, February eighth.

Saturday, February eighth.

All about me stand the drawings of my series, the “Mad Hermit.” They look mighty fine to me. Myself with whiskers and hair! First, to-day, when the storm abated a bit, we sank a bag of fish in the lake and then started on snowshoes for the ridge to the eastward. The snow lay in the woods there heavy and deep. No breath of wind had touched it. The small trees, loaded, bent double making shapes like frozen fountains. Some little trees with their branches starting far from the ground formed with th

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Monday, February tenth.

Monday, February tenth.

Yesterday morning I bathed in a snowstorm, this morning it was too terribly, howlingly blusterous to run out into it. And now since one o’clock it is as calm and mild as it ever could be. Within the cabin it’s even more cozy than usual. The snow is banked up against the big window to a third the window’s height. By day the light seems curtained, by night doubly bright from reflected lamplight. Heavy drifts are everywhere. Last night fine snow filtered in upon our faces as we slept but not enough

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Friday, February fourteenth.

Friday, February fourteenth.

The days go like the wind. So warm to-day and yesterday! We live out-of-doors. Now as I write the door stands open and the soft, moist, spring air enters to dispel the fumes of turpentine. I primed eight canvases to-day, six of which I had also stretched. This afternoon I painted at the northern end of the beach almost be neath a frozen waterfall, an emerald of huge size and wonderful form. PELAGIC REVERIE Rockwell is in high spirits. I think the augmentation of our diet brought by Olson’s retur

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Monday, February seventeenth.

Monday, February seventeenth.

Three days! and what has happened? I guess that on the first of them I stretched and painted canvas. On the second all day I painted out-of-doors, it was quite summer-like and the sun shone through diamond-dripping trees. And to-day I have written from early morning before breakfast until now, eleven at night. I have decided to go to Seward in a few days. It has become necessary to go back to New York very soon. I told Rockwell of this to-day and his eyes have scarcely been dry since. He has rea

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Tuesday, February eighteenth.

Tuesday, February eighteenth.

Such mild weather! With the fire nearly out it’s hot indoors to-night. A little snow, a little rain, but altogether a pleasant day. It’s always pleasant when I paint well. To-day I redeemed two straying pictures and they’re among the elect now. To-night a steamer entered from the westward, the Curaçao , long expected. She must have been here two or three days ago and since then been to Seldovia. With incredible slowness she crept over the water. What old hulks they do put onto this Alaska servic

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Wednesday, February nineteenth.

Wednesday, February nineteenth.

It rains and storms. But to-day we repaired the engine and we’re ready to start for Seward when it clears. Above every other thought now is the sad realization that our days on this beloved island are nearing an end. What is it that endears it so to a man near forty and a little boy of nine? We have such widely different outlooks upon life. It may be that Alaska stands midway between us, and that I, turning backward from the crowded world that I have known and learned to fear, meet Rockwell in h

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Thursday, February twentieth.

Thursday, February twentieth.

All day out-of-doors, both of us. In the morning Rockwell and I journeyed around the point between the two coves of the island. It’s a rocky promontory with a great jumble of bowlders at its base that one must scramble over. These are generally wet and slippery and not much fun. However we went well around and I set up my canvas and painted while Rockwell crawled about in caves and crevasses playing some sort of wild beast. The wind rose as I finished and made it difficult to convey my wet canva

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Sunday, February twenty-third.

Sunday, February twenty-third.

Friday was calm. We left the island at about eleven—after the usual hours fussing with the engine. At Hogg’s camp we called in for something to bale with, for the boat, being leaky, had taken in a lot of water. No one at home—so I stole a bowl from the shed and we proceeded. By then the sun shone upon us and we could observe, what we later confirmed at Seward, that the sun shines at the head of the bay while the island, our island, is shrouded in clouds. Quite different conditions prevail in the

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Wednesday, February twenty-sixth.

Wednesday, February twenty-sixth.

Yesterday we came home! We left Seward with only a light load aboard. It blew briskly in the bay from the north. Before we reached Caine’s Head there was a splendid, white-crested chop racing along with us. Midway across it was about all the engine could have stood. The propeller is not set at enough depth in our boat and in yesterday’s sea it was most of the time out of water, racing at a furious pace. Then the boat would naturally lose steerage way and we’d swing far out of our course. But it

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Monday, March third.

Monday, March third.

Inauguration day passed here without event. In this ideal community of Fox Island we’re so little concerned with law-the only law that bears on us at all we delight in breaking—that one wonders how far no government can be carried. One goes back to first principles in such speculation, endows man again with inalienable rights or at least inalienable desires, and then has simply to wonder how much of the love of order there is in the natural man. The fact that a large proportion of mankind can li

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Tuesday, March fourth.

Tuesday, March fourth.

A day of snow and rain spent by us indoors, Rockwell hard at work upon his chart of “Trobbeabl Island”—a wonderful imaginary land where his own strange species of wild animals live—and I washing and mending. My seaman’s bag, damaged on its way here in the hold of the steamer, is now quite professionally patched, and the knee of my blue overalls shines with a square patch of white canvas. Olson was welcome and spent much of the day with us. He has reread Kathleen’s letter to him and is charmed wi

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Thursday, March sixth.

Thursday, March sixth.

It’s mighty hard work, this painting under pressure. I’m too tired to attempt more than the briefest record on this page of two days’ doings. Yesterday it was gray. At sundown it cleared giving us the most splendid and beautiful sunset, the sun sinking behind the purple, snowy mountains and throwing its rays upward into a seething red-hot mass of clouds. I painted most of the afternoon out-of-doors. To-day we bathed at sunrise, brisk and cold and clear. The morning tide was so exceedingly low th

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Friday, March seventh.

Friday, March seventh.

That to-day began in snow and cloud matters not,—it ended in a glory. Olson, Rockwell, and I sat that late afternoon far out on the bay basking in the warmth of a summer sun, rocked gently on a blue summer sea. For hours we had explored the island’s western shore, skirting its tumbled reefs, riding through perilous straits right up to where the eddying water seethed at some jagged chasm’s mouth. That’s fine adventuring! flirting with danger, safe enough but close—so close to death. We landed on

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Monday, March tenth.

Monday, March tenth.

On the eighth it snowed hard all day and both of us worked at our trade indoors. The ninth dawned fresh and clear and cold. It was too windy to go out onto the bay as we had intended, so, not to be entirely cheated out of an excursion, we packed a bag of various supplies and set off for the ridge to the eastward. It was glorious in the woods. New fallen snow lay upon the tree branches; the sun touched only the tallest tops, the wind rustled them now and then and made it snow again below. We came

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Tuesday, March eleventh.

Tuesday, March eleventh.

It blows incessantly, cold and clear,—blue days. I have painted most of to-day, first indoors, and then outdoors commencing a large picture. Olson has been with us much of the time. He treasures every little memento we can give him. In his pocket-book are snap shots of Kathleen, Clara, and Barbara. He wanted Barbara’s curl that I have—but I couldn’t give him that. It looks as if we should all go to Seward together. This wind is likely to hold until the full moon passes—and that’s still some days

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Thursday, March thirteenth.

Thursday, March thirteenth.

Last night was bitterly cold. I had to get up repeatedly to attend to the fire. The wind howled and the vapor flew and Rockwell and I hugged close together beneath the blankets. Day dawned still icy cold. By noon it began to snow and the afternoon was calm and mild. And now again the wind blows fiercely from the northeast and we’re freezing cold! The day was spent in packing. The dismantled cabin looks forlorn....

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Sunday, March sixteenth.

Sunday, March sixteenth.

With the full moon has come the most perfect calm. If it holds through to-morrow we shall leave the island. The past three days have been busy ones. Bitterly cold weather has prevailed with the wind unceasingly from the north—almost the coldest days of the winter. Still I did some painting out-of-doors every day until yesterday, trying hard to pin upon the canvas a little more of the infinite splendors of this place. Meanwhile our packing was carried on. We have made a thoroughly good job of it—

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Tuesday, March eighteenth.

Tuesday, March eighteenth.

Fox Island is behind us. Last August Olson picked us up as strangers and towed us to his island; yesterday, after nearly seven months there with him we climbed again into our dories and crossed the bay—and now we extend the helping hand to the old man and tow him and his faltering engine back to Seward. The day dawned cold and windy. We proceeded however at once to the completion of our packing and the loading of the boat. A little after noon the wind moderating slightly we persuaded Olson to co

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