Our journal of Fox Island begins properly with the day of our final coming there, Wednesday, September the twenty-eighth, 1918.

At nine o’clock in the morning of that day we slid our dory into the water from the beach at Seward, clamped our little patched-up three and one half horse-power Evinrude motor in the stern, and commenced our loading.

Since the main part of such a story, as in all these following pages we shall have to tell, must consist in the detailing of the innumerable little commonplaces of our daily lives, we shall begin at once with a list, as far as we have record of it, of all we carried with us. It follows:

Also there were a heavy trunk containing books, paints, etc., one duffel bag, one suit case, and a few other things. And when these were stowed away in the dory there was little room for ourselves. However, at ten o’clock we cast off and started for Fox Island with the little motor running beautifully.

It lasted for three miles when at once, with a bang and a whir, the motor raced, and the boat stood motionless on the calm gray water. Through the fog we could just discern the cabin of a fisherman on the nearest point of shore—perhaps a mile distant. We rowed there as best we could, seated somehow atop our household goods; we unloaded our useless motor, our gasoline, and our batteries, cleared a little space in the boat for ourselves to man the oars, and in a miserable drizzling rain, pushed off for a long, long pull to the island. By too literal a following of directions I lengthened the remainder of the course to twelve miles, and that we rowed, I don’t know how, in four hours and a half. Fortunately the water was as calm as could be. Rockwell was a revelation to me. With scarcely a rest he pulled at the heavy oars that at first he had hardly understood to manage; and when we reached the island he was hilarious with good spirits.

We unloaded with the help of Olson—whom by the way we must introduce at some length—and stowed our goods in his house and shed. We cooked our supper on his stove and slept that night and the next on his floor; and then, having our own quarters by that time in passable shape, quit his friendly roof for the most hospitable, kindly, and altogether comfortable roof in the world—our own.

Olson is about sixty-five years of age. He’s a pioneer of Alaska and knows the country from one end to the other. He has prospected for gold on the Yukon, he was at Nome with the first rush there, he has trapped along a thousand miles of coast; and now, ever unsuccessful and still enterprising, he is the proprietor of two pairs of blue foxes—in corrals—and four goats. He’s a kind-hearted, genial old man with a vast store of knowledge and true wisdom.

The map shows our Fox Island estate. Our cabin was built as a shelter for Angora goats somewhat over a year ago. It is a roughly built log structure of about fourteen by seventeen feet, inside dimensions, and was quite dark but for the small door and a two by two feet opening on the western side. We went to work upon it the morning following our arrival and in two days, as has been told, made it a fit place to live in but by no means the luxurious home that it was in our mind to make. Our cabin to-day is the product of weeks’ more labor. To describe it is to account for our time almost to the beginning of the detailed days of this diary.

Tread first upon a broad, plank doorstep the hatch of some ill-fated vessel—the sea’s gift to us of a front veranda; stoop your head to four feet six inches and, drawing the latchstring, enter. Before you at the south end of the sombre, log interior is a mullioned window willing to admit more light than can penetrate the forest beyond. Before it is a fixed work table littered with papers, pencils, paints, and brushes. On each long side of the cabin is a shelf the eaves’ height, five feet from the floor. The right-hand one is packed with foods in sacks and tins and boxes, the left-hand shelf holds clothes and toys, paints and a flute, and at the far corner built to the floor in orthodox bookcase fashion, a library.

We may glance at the books. There are:

• “Indian Essays.” Coomaraswamy
• “Griechische Vasen”
• “The Water Babies”
• “Robinson Crusoe”
• “The Prose Edda”
• “Anson’s Voyages”
• “A Literary History of Ireland.” Douglas Hyde
• “The Iliad”
• “The Crock of Gold”
• “The Odyssey”
• Andersen’s “Fairy Tales”
• “The Oxford Book of English Verse”
• “The Home Medical Library”
• Blake’s “Poems”
• Gilchrist’s “Life of Blake”
• “The Tree Dwellers,” “The Cave Dwellers,” “The Sea People,” etc.
• “Pacific Coast Tide Table”
• “Thus Spake Zarathustra”
• “The Book of the Ocean”
• “Albrecht DÜrer” (A Short Biography)
• “Wilhelm Meister”
• Nansen’s “In Northern Mists”

In the center of the right-hand wall is a small low window and beneath it the dining table. Right at the door where we stand, to our left, is the sheet-iron Yukon stove and behind it another food-laden shelf. A new floor of broad unplaned boards is under our feet, a wooden platform—it is a bed—stands in the left-hand corner by the stove. Clothes hang under the shelves; pots and pans upon the wall, snowshoes and saws; a rack for plates in one place, a cupboard for potatoes and turnips behind the door—the cellar it may be called; the trunk for a seat, boxes for chairs, one stool for style; axes here and boots innumerable there, and we have, I think, all that the eye can take in of this adventurers’ home!

Trees stood thick about our cabin when we first came there; and between it and the shore a dense and continuous thicket of large alders and sapling spruces. Day by day we cleared the ground; cutting avenues and vistas; then, though contented at first with these, enlarging them until they merged, and the sun began to shine about the cabin. It grew brighter then and drier,—nonsense! am I mistaking the daylight for the sun? I can remember but one or two fair days in all the three weeks of our first stay on the island.

For a true record of this matter Olson’s diary shall be copied into these pages. It follows in full with his own phonetic spelling as leaven.

Sunday, Aug. 25th—Wary fin Day. over tu Hump Bay got 2 salmon an artist cam ar to Day and going to seward efter his outfit and ar going to sta Hear this Winter in the new Cabbin.

Wed. 28th.—Drisly rain and cold. Mr. Kint and is son arivd from seward this afternoon. goats out all night.

Thurs. 29th.—goats cam ome—12.30 p. m. Mr. Kint Working on the Cabbin fixing at up. Drisly rain all night and all day.

Fri. 30th.—Wary fin day and the goats vant for the montane igan. Help putting Windoes i to the Cabbin.

Sat. 31st.—Foggy day. Big steamer going to seward.

September

Sun. 1st.—Mead a trip around the island. Cloudy Day.

M. 2.—Big rainstorm from the S. E. goats all in the stabel.

T. 3.—Drisly rain all Day.

W. 4.—going to seward.

T. 5.—Came Home 1 P.M.

F. 6.—Drisly rain and Calm Wather.

S. 7.—S. E. rainstorm.

Sun. 8.—Big S. E. rainstorm.

M. 9.—Big S. E. rainstorm.

T. 10.—Big S. E. rainstorm.

W. 11.—first Colld night this fall. Clear Calm Day.

T. 12.—Clowdy and Calm. Tug and Barg going West.

F. 13.—Steamer from the Sought 5.30 P.M. Drisly rain and Calm.

S. 14.—raining Wary Hard. the litly angora queen ar in Hit this morning. Fraet steamer from West going to Seward.

Sun. 15.—raining Wary Hard all Day. the goats ar in the cabbin all Day sought Est storm.

M. 16.—S.E. rainstorm.

T. 17.—raining all Day. North Est storm With Caps and Wullys all over.

W. 18.—Wary fear day. Mr. Kint and the Boy vant to seward this morning.

T. 19.—raining heard all day steamer from West going to seward 4 P.M.

F. 20.—raining heard all Day.

S. 21.—Wary rof rainstorm from Soght Est. Wullys all over.

Sun. 22.—Steamer from West going to Seward 2 P.M. the tied vary Hie Comes clear up in the gras and the surf ar Stiring up all the Driftwood along the shore. raining lik Hell.

M. 23.—raining all Day.

T. 24.—Snow on top of the mountins on the maenland a tre mastid skuner from West going to Seward. toed by som gassboth raining to Day egan. Mr. Kint and son got ome to the island this Evening.

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 journal we’ve had not one fair day, and since we’ve been here on the island, seventeen days, there has been only one rainless day. There has been but one cloudless sunrise. I awoke that day just at dawn and looking across out of the tiny square window that faces the water could see the blue—the deep blue—mountains and the rosy western sky behind them. At last the sun rose somewhere and tipped the peaks and the hanging glaciers, growing and growing till the shadows of other peaks were driven down into the sea and the many ranges stood full in the morning light. The twilight hours are so wonderfully long here as the sun creeps down the horizon. Just think! there’ll be months this winter when we’ll not see the sun from our cove—only see it touching the peaks above us or the distant mountains. It will be a strange life without the dear, warm sun!

I wonder if you can imagine what fun pioneering is. To be in a country where the fairest spot is yours for the wanting it, to cut and build your own home out of the land you stand upon, to plan and create clearings, parks, vistas, and make out of a wilderness an ordered place! Of course so much was done—nearly all—when I came. But in clearing up the woods and in improving my own stead I have had a taste of the great experience. Ah, it’s a fine and wholesome life!...

Another day. The storm rages out of doors. To-day I stuffed the largest of the cracks in our wall with woolen socks, sweaters, and all manner of clothes. It’s so warm and cozy here now! Olson has been in to see me for a long chat. I believe he can give one the material for a thrilling book of adventure. Take his story, or enough of the thousand wild incidents of it, give it its true setting—publishing a map of that part of the coast where his travels mostly lay—let it be frankly his story retold, above all true and savoring of this land—and I believe no record of pioneering or adventure could surpass it. He’s a keen philosopher and by his critical observations gives his discourse a fine dignity. On Olson’s return to Idaho in the ’80’s after his first trip to Alaska a friend of his, a saloon-keeper, came out into the street, seized him, and drew him into his place. “Sit down, Olson,” he said, “and tell us about Alaska from beginning to end.” And the traveler told his long wonder-story to the crowd.

At last he finished.

“Olson,” said his friend, “that would make the greatest book in the world—if it was only lies.”

Gee, how the storm rages!

I’m relieved to-night; Rockwell, who seems to have a felon on his finger, is improving under the heroic treatment he submits to. I’ve had visions of operating on it myself—a deep incision to the bone being the method. It is no fun having such ailments to handle—unless you’re of the type Olson seems to be who, if his eye troubled him seriously, would stick in his finger and pull the eye out,—and then doubtless fill the socket with tobacco juice.

We have reached Wednesday, September the eighteenth.

That day the sun did shine. We rowed to Seward, Rockwell and I; stopped for the motor that on our last trip we had left by the way, but found the surf too high. At Seward the beach was strewn with damaged and demolished boats from a recent storm. Moreover, in the town the glacial stream was swollen to a torrent; the barriers had, some of them, been swept away; a bridge was gone, the railroad tracks were flooded, the hospital was surrounded and almost floated from its foundations. And we saw the next day, when it again poured rain, the black-robed sisters of charity, booted to the thighs, fleeing through the water to a safer place. It stormed incessantly for four days more. Although I had taken what seemed ample precaution for the safety of my dory, she was caught at the height of the storm by the exceptional tide of that season and carried against a stranded boat high up on the shore, and pinioned there by a heavy pile torn from the wharf. But our boat escaped undamaged.

Seward was dull for Rockwell and me. We’ve not come this long way from our home for the life of a small town. America offers nothing to the tourist but the wonders of its natural scenery. All towns are of one mold or inspired, as it were, with one ideal. And I cannot see in considering the buildings of a single period in the East and in the West any indication of diversity of character, of ideals, of special tradition; any susceptibility to the influence of local conditions, nothing in any typical American house or town where I have been that does not say “made in one mill.” There’s a God forsaken hideousness and commonplaceness about Alaskan architecture that almost amounts to character—but it is not quite bad enough to redeem itself. Somewhere in the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies there’s a little town of one street backed up against the towering mountains. Dominating the town is the two-or three-story “Queen Hotel,” the last word in flamboyant, gimcrack hideousness. Hotel and Mountain! it is sublime, that bald and crashing contrast.

On September third, I wrote to a friend: “They strike me as needlessly timid about the sea here, continually talking of frightful currents and winds in a way that seems incredible to me and would, I think, to a New England fisherman. However, I must be cautious. Olson says that in the winter for weeks at a time it has been impossible to make the trip to Seward. Well, I’ll believe it when I try it and get stuck.”

Three weeks later,—Tuesday, September twenty-fourth, we were in Seward. The morning was calm varying between sun and rain, but it seemed a good day to return to Fox Island. Rockwell and I had some difficulty launching our boat down the long beach at low water; but at last we managed it, loaded our goods aboard,—viz., two large boxes of groceries, fifty-nine pounds turnips, a stove, five lengths of stovepipe, a box of wood panels, two hundred feet one inch by two inch strips, suit case, snowshoes, and a few odd parcels.

At ten forty-five we pushed off. At just about that moment the sun retired for the day and a fine and persistent rain began to fall. After about three miles we were overtaken by a fisherman in a motor sloop bound to his camp three miles further down the shore. He took us in tow and, finally arriving at his camp, begged us to stay “for a cup of tea”—he was an Englishman. I yielded to the delay there against my own better judgment. After a hearty meal we left his cove at two fifteen.

Still it drizzled rain and the breeze blew faintly from the northeast. We had a seven-mile row before us. Near Caines Head we encountered squalls from the south and were for sometime in doubt as to the wind’s true direction. We headed straight for Fox Island only to find the wind easterly, compelling us to head up into it. I fortunately anticipated a heavier blow and determined to get as far to windward and as near the shelter of the lea shore as possible, and without any loss of time. Our propulsion toward the island I left to the tide which was about due to ebb. We made good headway for a little time until the wind bore upon us in heavy squalls.

The aspect of the day had become ominous. Heavy clouds raced through the sky precipitating rain. The mountainous land appeared blue black, the sea a light but brilliant yellow green. Over the water the wind blew in furious squalls raising a surge of white caps and a dangerous chop. I was now rowing with all my strength, foreseeing clearly the possibility of disaster for us, scanning with concern the terrible leeward shore with its line of breakers and steep cliffs. Rockwell, rowing always manfully, had great difficulty in the rising sea and wind. Fortunately he realized only at rare moments the dangers of our situation.

We were now rowing continually at right angles to our true course. I had but one hope, to get to windward before the rising sea and gale overpowered us and carried us onto the dreaded coast that offered absolutely no hope. Once to windward I had the choice of making a landing in some cove or continuing for Fox Island by running with the wind astern. At last the surface of the water was fairly seething under the advancing squalls; the spray was whipped into vapor and the caldron boiled. I bent my back to the oars and put every ounce of strength into holding my own with the gale. It was a terrible moment for I saw clearly the alternative of continuing and winning our fight.

“Father,” pipes up Rockwell from behind me at this tragic instant “when I wake up in the morning sometimes I pretend my toes are asleep, and I make my big toe sit up first because he’s the father toe.” At another time Rockwell, who had shown a little panic—a very little—said: “You know I want to be a sailor so I’ll learn not to be afraid.”

At last we turned and made for the island. We had reached the point where with good chances of success we could turn,—and where we had to. We reached the shelter of the island incredibly fast, it seemed, with the sea boiling in our wake, racing furiously as if to engulf us,—and then bearing us so smoothly and swiftly upon its crest that if it had not been so terrible it would have been the most soothing and delightful motion in the world. In rounding the headland of our cove a last furious effort of the eluded storm careened us sailless as we were far on one side and carried us broadside toward the rocks. It was a minute before we could straighten our boat into the wind and pull away from the shore, then twenty feet away. Olson awaited us on the beach with tackle in readiness to haul our boat out of the surf. We landed in safety. Looking at my watch I found it to be a quarter to six. (The last four miles had taken us three hours!)

Olson’s dory had been hauled up onto the grass and tied down securely. Mine was soon beside it. The tides and heavy seas of this time of year make every precaution necessary.

The wind that night continued rising ’til it blew a gale. And that night in their bed Rockwell and his father put their arms tight about each other without telling why they did it.

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 certainly not be troubled with sunlight while I may yet borrow some of the near-sun brilliancy from above our mountain’s top. Rockwell and I worked some time with the cross-cut saw. I’m constantly surprised by his strength and stamina. Rockwell read nine pages in his book of the cave dwellers. So nine of “Robinson Crusoe” were due him after supper. He undresses and jumps into bed and cuddles close to me as I sit there beside him reading. And “Robinson Crusoe” is a story to grip his young fancy and make this very island a place for adventure.

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 when my fire roared for the biscuit baking the heat was almost unbearable. The usual chores of wood and water; a little work at manufacturing stationery; supper of farina, corn bread, peanut butter, and tea; six pages for Rockwell; and the day, but for this diary, is done.

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 always so contented, so happy that the day was not half long enough.

Ah, the evenings are beautiful here and the early mornings, when the days are fair! No sudden springing of the sun into the sky and out again at night; but so gradual, so circuitous a coming and a going that nearly the whole day is twilight and the quiet rose color of morning and evening seems almost to meet at noon. We glance through our tiny western window at sunrise and see beyond the bay the many ranges of mountains, from the somber ones at the water’s edge to the distant glacier and snow-capped peaks, lit by the far-off sun with the loveliest light imaginable.

To-night for supper a dish of Olson’s goat’s milk “Klabber” (phonetic spelling), simply sour milk with all its cream upon it, thick to a jelly. It was, in the favorite expression of Rockwell, “delicious.”

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 where he and Nanny—the milk goat—stood. And there they played long enough for him to have taken a dozen pictures. In the afternoon we saw a number of otters at another place, on the rocks at one end of the beach. They were in and out of the water, going at times for little excursion swims far out into the harbor, then chasing each other back and playing hide-and-go-seek among the rocks. This afternoon I prepared all my wood panels to begin my work, painting them on both sides.

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 from our windows. The difference it has made is wonderful; our room is flooded with light.

There is a fascination in cutting trees. Once I have gripped my axe, or even the tedious saw, I find it hard to relinquish it, returning to it again and again for one more cut. I believe that the clearing of homesteads gave the pioneer a compelling interest in life that was in wonderful contrast to the ordinary humdrum labor to which at first he must have been bred. It is easy to understand the rapid conquest of the wilderness; begin it—and you cannot stop.

Rockwell has set his heart upon trapping, in the kindest and most considerate way known, some wild thing—and having it for a pet. I rather discouraged his taming the sea urchin and persuaded him out of consideration for the intelligent creature’s feelings to restore him to the salt water—and let me have back the bread pan. But now one of Olson’s box traps is set for a magpie. They’re plentiful here. I built myself a fine easel to-day, the best one I’ve ever had; and put a shelf under my drawing table. The room is clean and neat to-night; it is in every way a congenial place. I don’t see why people need better homes than this. It was cloudy most of to-day and rained a very little from time to time. Soon I can no longer keep from painting.

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 climbing, that the ridge lay still the good part of an hour’s climb above us.

So to-day, though we chose our path more wisely, it proved hard climbing along rough stream beds, across innumerable fallen trees, through alder, bramble, and blueberry thickets, and always with the soft, oozy moss underfoot. But we reached the top-steep to the very edge. Suddenly the trees ended, the land ended,—falling sheer away four hundred feet below us; and we stood in wonder looking down and out over a smooth green floor of sea and a fairyland of mountains, peaks and gorges, and headlands that cast long purple shadows on the green water. Clouds wreathed the mountains, snow was on their tops, and in the clear atmosphere both the land and the sea were marvelous for the beauty of their infinite detail. Tiny white crested wavelets patterned the water’s surface with the utmost precision and regularity; and the land invited one to its smooth and mossy slopes, its dark enchanted forests, its still coves and sheltered valleys, its nobly proportioned peaks. It was a rare hour for us two.

We then followed the ridge toward the south walking in the smoothly trodden paths of the porcupines. It led us up the lofty hill on the east side of the island between its two coves. But the steepness of the ascent and the matted thickets of storm-dwarfed alders that were in our way were too much, I thought, for Rockwell, and after going some distance farther alone I returned to him and we started homewards.

Once on the mountain side we sat down in the moss and mountain cranberry to rest. And all at once we saw a great old porcupine come clambering up the hill a short way from us. I spoke to him in his own whiny-moany language and he was much pleased; he sat up, listened, and then came almost straight toward us. I continued talking to him until after several corrections of his course—determined upon by sitting up and listening—he arrived within four or five feet of Rockwell, and sat up again.

We could hardly keep from laughing, he looked so foolish. But he sensed things to be wrong, dropped down, elevated his quills, then turned and started off. Somehow I couldn’t let him go without annoying him; so, grabbing a stick I pursued him poking at him to collect a few quills. But at this Rockwell set up such a shrieking and wailing that I had to stop,—and finally apologized profusely and explained that I meant no harm to the sweet creature. Rockwell madly loves wild animals, has not the slightest fear of them, and would really, I believe, try out his theory of calming the anger of a bear by kissing him.

Then we came home and had a good dinner. I cut more wood and at last, after one month here on the island, I PAINTED. It was a stupid sketch, but no matter, I’ve begun! A weasel came out and looked at me as I worked, then whisked off. The magpies look into our trap, squint at the food, and then at once leave that neighborhood. It is cloudy and rainlike to-night. Is it too much to hope for more than one fair day?

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