Back to Nature

I wrote last month about the movement to connect children with nature, a campaign inspired by reports that children are spending less time outdoors and that fewer families are camping in national parks. It’s a movement I applaud, but I’m not prepared to go as far in trying to lead people to nature as Joe Knowles did in 1913.

Knowles wound up living out his days as an artist in a driftwood shack on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington State. His artwork is on display at the Ilwaco Heritage Museum there this summer, but his fame came from a “back to nature” stunt in Maine.

The story was recounted in a 1981 American Heritage Magazine story by Gerald Carson that began by describing a day in August 1913 this way:

“It was raining. A 44-year-old man named Joseph Knowles gingerly entered an old logging road in the Dead River country of Maine. He was nearly naked and carried no tools, weapons or equipment of any sort, not even a bottle of mosquito repellent.”

Knowles was going into the woods alone for a couple of months to prove that modern man could make out as well in the wilderness as primitive man. The idea for the experiment was hatched—probably in a saloon—by Knowles and Michael McKeogh, a freelance newspaperman. They took the idea to the struggling Boston Post, which agreed to run a series of Sunday features on the experiment.

Knowles was to disappear into the woods, and scratch out messages on birchbark with charcoal at a certain tree stump each week. McKeogh would set himself up in a cabin with a typewriter, have a guide retrieve the messages, and write a story, apparently using his imagination to fill in the details that Knowles didn’t scribble out.

“I shall be entirely independent of the rest of humanity,” Knowles declared at the beginning of the experiment. He planned to clothe himself with the skins of animals he killed, and eat a diet of berries, roots, wild onion, fish and venison. And that’s what happened, according to the Post stories, which said he scooped trout out of a river, ran down a deer and killed it with his bare hands, and dispatched a black bear with a club. Before long he was eating bear steaks and wearing deer-hide moccasins and a fur cloak.

Fame Spreads
The series was a sensation, pumping up the Post’s circulation, and was reprinted as far west as Kansas City.

But there were problems. The Maine Fish and Game Commission sent out wardens to see if Knowles was obeying hunting regulations, a rival newspaper began snooping around on the theory that the experiment was a fake, and a trapper claimed he repeatedly saw Knowles go into McKeogh’s cabin at mealtimes.

Nevertheless, Knowles emerged from the woods somewhere in Canada in October with matted hair, fur-lined chaps and a bearskin cloak. He wandered into a settlement where he hitched a ride on a train. On his return to the U.S., he was greeted as a hero by thousands of people lining train stations, was received by the mayor of Boston and governor of Massachusetts, and was feted at receptions and banquets. School was dismissed so children could turn out for the educational experience. An estimated 200,000 people joined in the various welcomes. Knowles wrote a book, Alone in the Wilderness, that sold 300,000 copies, and told his tale on the vaudeville circuit.

He was invited to repeat the Maine experiment in the Adirondacks by the New York Journal and the Siskiyou Mountains of California by the San Francisco Examiner, but these adventures couldn’t top what he did in Maine.

On to Washington
In 1917, Knowles made his way to the Long Beach Peninsula, where he lived until his death in 1942 at the age of 73. He and his wife, Marion Humphrey, also an artist, ran an art studio out of their home, a three-room cottage built out of materials salvaged from the beach in Seaview.

Knowles was known for his artwork that he sold to tourists vacationing at the beach and for 46 paintings he created for Longview’s Monticello Hotel, including 22 murals that are still intact and were recently restored. The exhibit at the Ilwaco Heritage Museum includes 230 items ranging from simple sketches on envelopes to large oil paintings that once hung in Ilwaco’s cinema. It also includes photos of Knowles entering the Maine woods, his vaudeville tour and his appearances in Western movies. The exhibit runs through September 30. The museum, 115 SE Lake St., Ilwaco, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.

If you want more details about Knowles’ Maine adventure, which we have summarized from Gerald Carson’s amusing American Heritage story, you can read the full story online at AmericanHeritage.com. But you might want to hurry. American Heritage Magazine, which was founded 53 years ago, suspended print publication in May and its future is in doubt.

As we look back on the Boston Post series and the media sensation Knowles created, it seems ludicrous. But I am not sure journalism has advanced all that much in the century since. You could make the case that the 1913 media frenzy over Knowles and his adventures is no more crazy than the 2007 media frenzy over Paris Hilton going to jail. In fact, I think you could make the case that the Knowles story is much more interesting and a lot more fun.

For this month’s issue of RV Life, we didn’t send anyone into the woods naked to test their survival skills, but we do have some interesting reports. Columnist Sharlene Minshall tells about a group of RVers who do admirable volunteer work, writer Bill London shows you where to find a scenic drive through the Palouse, and we salute the emergence of the American bald eagle from the endangered species list by showing you places in Oregon and Washington where you can watch eagles soar. You will find all that and much more in the pages that follow.

Finally, we have a correction to make. A story in our May issue referred to Whidbey Island in Washington State as the “longest island in the Lower 48.” Reader Martin Ehrlich, a frequent cross-country traveler, points out that Long Island, at 119 miles, is much longer than Whidbey. He is right, of course. But apparently so many people in Washington State believe incorrectly that Whidbey is the longest that there is even a Web page at www.peakbagger.com/pbgeog/longisl.aspx devoted to straightening us out, pointing out that not only Long Island, but a couple of others are longer than Whidbey.

Write to Mike Ward, editor at RV Life Magazine, 18717 76th Avenue West, Suite B, Lynnwood, WA 98037 or e-mail editor@rvlife.com. Find First Glance on-line at rvlife.com.