Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

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sleepy-this first

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 of man's destiny assuming himself the lineaments of it, in stature grown gigantic, rearing upwards beyond the narrow cloud

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with my interests can anything be more conclusive proof of the superiority of that age to this than the position of the

sed to do everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I was sitting there in such grandeur, Adrian Horebouts, the syndic of Antwerp, came with two servants and presented me with four cans of wine in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bid him say that they wish thereby to show their respect fo

stimate culture to realize that all of his own civilization goes with him right to th

whether we work with hands or levers,-but by the final fruit of all of these, that imperishable record of the human spirit, Art. The obituary o

ng the mountains from the base to half their height. Our rafters bend beneath the blast; ice-from we know not where-falls upon us with a thundering noise. The canvases suspended aloft sway and

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and I returned to a good night's rest. Somehow one doesn't mind short exposures to the cold. Many a day I have stood naked out in the wind and then become at once glowing warm again in the hot cabin. Baked bread to-day and i

December

ise 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

ed the ravenous fire. And even so the water pails froze. We cannot afford to let it freeze much in the cabin for our stores are all exposed. What if the Christmas cider should fre

December

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, a

reached the crest. Ah, there it was glorious; such blue and gold and rose! We looked down upon the spit and saw the sea piling upon it; we looked seaward and saw the snow blown from the land, the spray and the mist rising in clouds toward the sun,-and th

felled a tree-which the wind carried over onto another so that there it hangs neither up nor down,-and that's about all

A

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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 anoth

and related his recollecti

gets lying thick upon the bottom. But the tailor really knew nothing about gold and let it lie. He continued down the coast and was at last carried to St. Michael. There he met a missionary and a young fellow who had come to Alaska with a party of prospectors. With those two he returned in a boat to Nome. You'll hear different stories, to be sure, of how they got there but this is the right one, for I've seen the boat they came in lying there off the beach. Well, they came and saw the gold but none of them could say for certain what it was. So one of them we

ood, so I bought those too. But shortly after when I came home one day from prospecting I found that both the tent and the wood had been stolen. I bought lumber for the frame of a new tent. It cost me thirty dollars; that is, fifty c

s. It was said openly that if you saw anyone's claim 'jump it,' and the lawyers would make more money for you than you could get out in gold. There was no use in a man without money trying to hold a claim. And the crowd that was there! Gamblers, sharps, actors,-men and women of every

s. Everything was overturned for gold,-the entire beach for ten miles both ways from Nome was shoveled o

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as been everywhere and tried everything. I have not done him justice in my abridgment of his Nome story. His recollections are so intimate. He remembers the words

edit including the conception of a new picture so vivid that the doing of it will be mere copying. It is th

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s 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 poss

ely lips." He's certainly the kindest creature to anim

e bay but it lies low upon the water and the

, helped Olson a bit, and had a glorious rough-house with my son. He's a great fighter. I train him for the fights he

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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 absolutely profitless and trivial enterprises. And here what a haven of peace! Almost the last touch is added to its perfection by the sweet nature of the old man Olson. I have ne

y was blue and mild, a day for work. I made of my "North Wind" the most beautiful picture that ever was. I stood it facing outwards in the doorway and from far off it

elling a tall spruce more than two feet in diameter. It lies now near the cabin a great screen of evergreen. Its wood should last us many weeks. I painted out-of-doors on two

d out in the moonlight. On days when paintin

working clothes, all bearded, brown, free spirited. And their wealth they carried on them in bags, gold, some to $7000 worth. As Olson tells it you yourself live in that day. You hear the German landlady of the "Chicago Hotel" in San Francisco, a motherly woman who put all the grub on the table at once so you could help yourself, say, "You boys

ter they were paid in coin for their gold-by the mint-and all went to the tailors and got them fine suits of clothes.... And so it continues. And he told of Custer's massacre. And, to-night of the sagacity of horses in leading a trappe

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im 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 f

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ld and overcast. A light snow has begun to fall. So far this winter the fall of snow has been

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dly worth recording, one that w

ng fiercely-hours long it seems-while the foolish goats flee in terror and the foxes race wildly up and down the extent of their corral. Again he's a browsing creature eating the spruce needles with decided relish,-doing it so seriously. Truly he lives the part he plays when it is one of his beloved wild creatures. Then he tears up and down the beach mounted like a four-year-old kid on a stick horse, yelling as loud as he can, going to th

at if all the little beauties of spirit that can now be seen budding could be allowed free, clean growth, quite away from the brutal hand of mass

of speech with him but an attitude towards life. If it were the creed of a great poet-and it could be-the discerning critic might discover it to be of the profoundest significance in modern thought. In little Rockwell it is of one piece

children. But of this I am certain,-that nothing will make a child more ridiculous in the eyes of the mob child than this most perfect and most beautiful attitude of some children toward life. In conside

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resently found his way

u want?" sa

in, of

t of man

a m

ad anyone of that kind here before, so

f heaven, digging ditches and tunnels all over the place and making a frigh

miner here and we only wish we knew some way to

"and I'll promise to get rid of that fe

ork amid a shower of flying earth. Going up to him he crie

ward the gates. "Peter, Peter, open, ope

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ttle really cold weather here. To-night it is full moon. The tide is at its highest for the year and the southeast wind piles the water up till it reaches and overflows the land. Olson expects

December

ndefinitely. 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 basi

re you going to do about it?" Well, they would see what could be done, and in time referred him to a higher authority. "I want a cabin," Olson said to this one. "If you don't give me the lumber to build one with I'll have to steal it from you. I have no money and no cabin. Winter is here and I'm certainly going to live in a cabin this winter." So they gave him an old shed to tear down and use but told him not to build on the beach. The town of Seward was laid off in lots. By the stakes Olson could tell a lot from a street, and fair and square on a lot, somebody's lot, he put his cabin. The owner of the land was tolerant and let it stay there a few years; but one day he orde

ell-and this more to be heard upon the beach than seen. Rockwell and I at dusk walked the shore out to the point between the coves. We saw the glowing sky where the sun had set, the mountainous islands to th

ch. And in other ways I noticed his alacrity to be obliging. Later in the day he told me, after much embarrassment, that he had made up his mind to be nicer about everythi