Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

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everal 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 ma

the lake, the moon high above us in a cloudless sky, the snow and ice on the mountain sides glistening and the spruces black. We skated together hand in hand like sweethearts;

ddle Ages with his hair cut to a line above his eyes. Now he's truly a handsome fellow-and

November

old 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 one night on the lighted stove. We love this weather here. While the cabin is drafty I pile on fuel remorse

onto the land above the beach. The boat is an extremely heavily built eighteen-foot dory with a heavy keel; and yet the wind carried it four feet last night and, if it had no

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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 article

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ckwell 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, lea

November

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 a

ELL'S

f it rattles. From the tall trees the great drops fall like stones; they beat to pieces, little by little, the paper roof,

and that kind of stuff." Just the same Rockwell himself has his life and marriage pretty closely planned,-the journey from the East alone, the wife to be found at Seattle to save her carfare-a

suppose that Art can go beyond the finest specimens of Art that are now in the world is not knowing what Art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the Spirit." Here in the supreme simplicity of life amid these mountains the spirit laughs at man's concern with the form o

November

rific sea running but even such a sea would trouble us less than the

I made myself a lot of envelopes to-day and second-coated the canvases of yesterday's stretching. And now it is bedtime for to-morrow we rise early. Oh! the porcupine returned to-day and was discovered feeding calmly near the cabin. He show

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ess 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 an

Seward! And here before me are displayed all the pretty Christmas presents I have made and that Rockwell has made. Here we sit, these dark short days, working together at the same table just like two professional craftsmen. On these days I cannot paint,-and Olson calls upon us more tha

ABIN

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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 industrious as usual, drawing at my side. He told me an amusing anecdote of little Kathleen

aved the oil which had separated from the rest of it. I made dough for doughnuts while I heated the oil to fry ourselves that great treat. Then arose a

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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 with some success for the snow makes the cab

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n 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 only in black and white. But I've laid in the whole picture in that

TO

ngible things and not use words loosely and without exact meaning.) I think that whatever of the mystic is in a man is essentially inseparable from him; it is his by the grace of God. After all, the qualities by which all of us become known are those of which we are ourselves

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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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t 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 small grocery size with a cover fastened with a strap and buckle. Such a box is part of the outfit of every man on the Yukon. My emergency grub

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, 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 stern and can be readily detached and drawn into the boat. But mine

bed early and if it is calm just before day

FTW

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e 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 t

ome of my gloom at never reaching Seward. A long call from Olson to-night. He sits h

t seem to him appropriate and characteristic beyond question. Clara, too, sees names as colors. Father is blue, Mother is a darker blue. The breadth of vowel sound apparently, ju