Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska–Including Extensive Hitherto Unpublished Passages from the Original Journal

A new paperback edition of Kent’s first book, often referred to as “Alaska’s Walden.”

In August 1918 Rockwell Kent and his 9-year-old son settled into a primitive cabin on an island near Seward, Alaska. Kent, who during the next three decades became America’s premier graphic artist, printmaker, and illustrator, was seeking time, peace, and solitude to work on his art and strengthen ties with his son. This reissue of the journal chronicling their 7-month odyssey describes what Kent called “an adventure of the spirit.” He soon discovers how deeply he is “stirred by simple happenings in a quiet world” as man and boy face both the mundane and the magnificent: satisfaction in simple chores like woodchopping or baking; the appalling gloom of long and lonely winter nights; hours of silence while each works at his drawings; crystalline moonlight glancing off a frozen lake; killer whales cavorting in their bay. Richly illustrated by Kent’s drawings, the journal vividly re-creates that sense of great height and space — both external and internal — at the same time that it celebrates a wilderness now nearly lost to us.

Author: Rockwell Kent
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 07/26/1996
Pages: 237
Weight: 1.16lbs
Size: 10.04h x 7.14w x 0.79d
ISBN: 9780819552938
Language: English