Voyaging - Southward from the Strait of Magellan
by Kent, Rockwell
pub. by Grossett & Dunlop, NY. 1968 (orig. 1924)      isbn __ - LCCN 67-24245 - - 184 p. -- many pictures drawn by Kent and 3 hand drawn area maps - larger maps on the endpapers.
Rockwell Kent, born 1882 died 1971 - American artist, author, liberal political activist early in his mid-life traveled stayed and wrote about Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, and later Greenland. He lived in Vermont, USA. This adventure began in 1922 when he booked passage on a steamer to Puntas Arenas the southernmost city on continental South America. En route he became friends with one of the mates on the steamer, Ole Ytterock, and hired him to be a companion on this trip. Ole was thereafter called the Mate. In Puntas Arenas he acquired an old lifeboat which over the period of 2 months rebuilt into a yacht which he named Kathleen. Kent and sailed to the west (against the prevailing wind.) He sailed into Admiralty sound. The boat leaked a lot, almost foundering. They made port on Dawson Island and as luck would have it the shipbuilders at Port Harris, in Harris Bay, strengthened the hull while Kent painted a picture of the most fameous boat that this shipyard had ever built. His adventure took him further east and a visit to Mulach (a very rural farm) where he was stuck against foul weather for some weeks. He sailed on and left the Kathleen at Don Antonio. From there he and Ole spent a few days hiking across the peninsula. They were very likely the first non-natives to do so. They arrived at an estancia at Yandrgaia Bay then traveled east to the southernmost town of Ushuaia. There they met a number of people who befriended them. They met Lundberg who had a boat and who took Kent to his home Harberton. Kent and the Mate spent a celebrated Christmas at Harberton. They met up with Ernesto Christopherson who acted as leader/captain of the hired sloop (with ancient inboard motor) for the trip to see Cape Horn. The cape is the southernmost of the Wallaston Island. They made it to the middle of the islands and the weather, which had cleared for a short time, turned stormy and they returned to Harberton. From there Kent returned to Puntas Arenas visiting a number of farms held by ex English families, and sailed from there in a steamer to return to USA. Ole, the Mate returned to where they left the Kathleen, found it sound, but up on shore due to a fierce storm which largely wrecked the village. From there he sailed it back to Puntas Arenas and delivered it to Lundberg to whom it was consigned as payment for services.
~2010-07-06~

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