Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska: Charles Money

Posted At : January 12, 2009 1:00 AM
Related Categories: Alaska,Personal Narratives

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Excerpted from Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska by Rockwell Kent.

Read by Charles Money: "This passage about the Alaska experience is a favorite of mine. It deftly describes both the joy and fear inherent in exploring Alaska's wild lands, even today." Ten years ago, Charles' passion for public lands brought him, his wife Julie and their two boys, Nick and Ben, to Anchorage, where Charles serves as the Executive Director of Alaska Geographic, the state-wide educational nonprofit partner to Alaska's parks, forest and refuges. Charles invites you to share in the wonder of these lands at Alaska Geographic's website.

In 1918, Rockwell Kent and his young son spent a long winter on Fox Island near Kenai Fjords. In his Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, Kent describes the isolation:

"These days are wonderful but they are terrible. It is thrilling now ... to reflect that we are absolutely cut off from all mankind, that we cannot, in this raging sea, return to the world nor the world come to us. Barriers must secure your isolation in order that you may experience the full significance of it. The romance of an adventure hangs upon slender threads. A banana [peel left] on a mountain top tames the wilderness. Much of the glory of this Alaska is in the knowledge I have that the next bay -- which I may never choose to enter -- is uninhabited, that beyond those mountains across the water is a vast region that no man has ever trodden, a terrible ice-bound wilderness."

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I'm struck by the banana peel comment. I wonder if Wallace Stevens was aware of this comment when he wrote "Anecdote of the Jar," which talks about a jar on a hill in Tennessee and how the "wilderness rose up to it . . . no longer wild." It seems to be the same idea. I didn't understand the poem as a college student, but now I know what is meant by "It took dominion everywhere." Those of us who have been blessed to experience any bit of true wilderness know what he meant.

# Posted By Loren Gustafson | 9/9/09 10:19 AM

Fortunately, both banana peels, jars and their ilk can be picked up and packed out -- restoring wilderness. Larger objects and greater quantities require help from more people. For the really large items you need organizations. For me there are few things more satisfying to the soul than cleaning a beach that few will ever see.

# Posted By Larry B | 9/12/09 9:15 PM

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