Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), an enigmatic artist from New York, spent an extraordinary year painting on a remote island in Greenland in 1931-32 and went on to write a book about his experience, Salamina. We went to see the country; I, to paint. (266) Painting; painting incessantly. Pursuing beauty in bewilderment at its profusion, greedy to get in one short year the whole of what might thrill a man a lifetime. (315) Let all your dreams have been of warmth and tropical luxuriance; let what at last is given you be bare, bleak, cold, in every way unlike your thoughts of earthly paradise, your chameleon soul cries out, “By God, I love this barrenness!” (22) One may speculate – I often do – on what we need, what human beings need, to be contented. On whether books and ark, or work, or leisure, or fresh air, or so many pounds per week of potatoes, oatmeal, meat, or love; what do we need? It would be good to know. (161) The beauty of those Northern winter days is more remote and passionless, more nearly absolute, than any other beauty that I know. Blue sky, white world, and the golden light of the sun to rune the whiteness to the sun-illumined blue. (197)