Breath of Wilderness Read online

  Sigurd’s hard work paid off when a compromise was reached. The construction of two roads was allowed in the roadless Superior National Forest: the Fernberg Road east of Ely and the Upper Gunflint Trail. Later another road, the Echo Trail, was allowed. This was far less than what the Forest Service and the chambers of commerce had advocated for but still an unwelcome development for the conservationists.

  This brochure, published by commercial interests and the US Forest Service, promoted the construction of roads through the wilderness.

  Then in 1926, US secretary of agriculture

  William Jardine designated 640,000 acres of the national forest to be protected as wilderness, which would later become a significant portion of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA).

  Sig learned a great deal from that first battle, and those early efforts laid the groundwork for his future fights to save the wilderness.

  That initial threat led to another. Also in 1926, lumber baron Edward Backus proposed the construction of dams at Kettle Falls, Curtain Falls, Upper Basswood Falls, and Saganaga and Knife Lakes to produce power along miles of shoreline in the area that at the time was called the Superior Roadless Area. This plan would have flooded hundreds of islands and several thousand miles of shoreland, obliterating the wilderness. One evening, Sigurd paddled his canoe into the wilderness and imagined what the area would look like if the dams were built. “The mists might rise again,” he wrote, “but the music of [this] hallowed place would be stilled forever, the enchantment gone. … The islands lay like black silhouettes against the glow of sunset, the dusk [is] alive with the calling of the loons. … It [seems] incredible that anyone would want to transform such a scene into kilowatts and profit, and I [know] in my heart nothing [is] more important than saving it. Man [needs] beauty more than power, solitude more than dividends.”

  And so Sigurd, along with other conservationists such as Ernest Oberholtzer, took on the developers. Once again, Sig shared his love, enthusiasm, and knowledge by writing and speaking to groups, individuals, and people in power.

  While Sig was speaking up to protect the wilderness, he continued to help people experience it in person. In 1929, Sig and two partners, Wallie Hansen and Pete Peterson, started Border Lakes Outfitting Company. They provided equipment and guides for canoeists heading into the wilderness.

  Sig referred to himself as a “canoe man trying to get the rest of the world excited about saving ... the finest recreational resource on the continent, our wilderness canoe country.”

  Sig began to see results from his work to protect the wilderness when, in 1930, Congress passed the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act, protecting the shorelines of lakes and streams on federal land within the Superior National Forest. This did not prevent logging away from shorelines, though.

  In the fall of 1931, Sig attended the University of Illinois in Champaign for one year, studying wolves and their predatory habits to earn a master’s degree in animal and plant ecology. He was the first to study wolves, and his research proved to be a milestone in understanding the species, both for the scientific community and for himself. Before his close study of wolves, he had seen them only as killers and predators of deer. Afterward, he was a strong advocate for their protection.

  Sig became an owner/manager of Border Lakes Outfitting Company with two partners, Walter “Wallie” Hansen and Mervin “Pete” Peterson. In this picture he is standing in front of the outfitting company with Wallie Hansen.

  He once wrote to a friend about a timber wolf that had crossed a trail where Sig stood: “It stopped beside a great boulder then turned to watch me not fifty feet away. It had a gorgeous black ruff over the shoulders and I could see the eyes. For a few moments we talked wolf-talk. … Then it wheeled in the deep snow and plunged out of sight.”

  Sig loved learning, but school was not for him. Once again, he felt antsy in the classroom and couldn’t wait to get back to northern Minnesota. When he returned home, he continued guiding and managing his outfitting company in the summer and during the school year taught almost exclusively at Ely Junior College.

  In 1933, the Minnesota legislature passed a law protecting state-owned shorelines within the Superior National Forest. The next year, the International Joint Commission of Canada and the United States, an organization that works to resolve disputes over waters on the borders of the two countries, recommended the denial of the proposed power plant plan. It had taken nine long years to ban the development, but thanks to Sig’s persistence, the land he loved would be protected — at least temporarily.

  Shortly after the power plant project was defeated, Sigurd began another fight: banning airplanes from flying over the Superior Roadless Area. In 1941, pilots began flying fishermen into the region from all over the United States. The number of flights escalated as pilots returned home after World War II. This flood of people led to resorts being built throughout the roadless area. The silence of the wilderness was overcome by the sound of airplane engines as planes flew over and landed nearby. On one canoe trip in Knife Lake, Sig counted a plane every eight minutes for six straight hours.

  On another trip, Sigurd and a companion paddled their canoe through a pale green mist. They observed a black bear scooping luminous fish out of a pool of water, while partridges drummed a low-pitched thumping beat in the distance. The air, rich with the smell of thawing humus, felt calm and peaceful. Trout splashed in the stream. Gradually, a dull drone grew louder and louder, and then they saw lights coming toward them. The pilot gunned his motor and landed his floatplane in the water nearby. Passengers disbanded, and the plane rose back into the sky as if it had never been there. Suddenly the trout were still, the loons were gone, and the tranquility of the wilderness had evaporated.

  In 1948, Congress passed the Thye-Blatnik Act, which directed the secretary of agriculture to acquire resorts, cabins, and private lands within two-thirds of the future BWCA. This helped eliminate many of the privately owned resorts and cabins in the wilderness and was a step toward banning the planes.

  After eight years of working tirelessly, Sigurd and others convinced President Harry S. Truman to sign an executive order in 1949 banning the planes. With the planes gone, remote resorts that were accessible only by airplane were closed.

  Sig liked to quote his friend William O. Douglas, a US Supreme Court justice, who said, “We establish sanctuaries for ducks and deer and other animals. Is it not time that we establish a few sanctuaries for men?”

  Sig had become dean of Ely Junior College in 1936. He was a popular dean, and it was a stable, prestigious job, but he grew frustrated with its duties, and he longed to be outdoors or writing. In 1945, he traveled to England to work as a civilian in the US Army teaching zoology and geology to servicemen. After he returned in 1946, he spent only one more year as dean and then resigned to devote his life “to conservation, especially wilderness and writing of a type that will make people understand and be aware of what is at stake.” He served as a wilderness ecologist with the Izaak Walton League and as a consultant to the president’s Quetico-Superior Committee, an advisory group working to preserve the canoe country wilderness. Later he was named president of the National Parks Association and

  vice president (later president) of The Wilderness Society.

  These roles and others kept Sigurd front and center in the national wilderness scene and connected him with other visionaries and leaders in the movement, including Bob Marshall, who founded The Wilderness Society; Olaus Murie, director of the Izaak Walton League; and US Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas. In 1954, he joined Douglas, Murie, Washington Post journalists, and thirty-some others on an eight-day hike, covering 189 miles, along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal from Cumberland, Maryland, to Washington, DC, to publicize their opposition of a plan to develop the wild and primitive canal area. After working together on this cause, the group remained friends and stayed in close contact, joining forces on a number of conservation causes, but also traveling and canoeing together for fun.<
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  Sig enjoyed teaching US servicemen and traveling throughout Europe after World War II, while he worked as a civilian

  employee for the army.

  President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act of 1964 in September of that year. The Wilderness Act, which created the National Wilderness Preservation System that included the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, has been called one of the nation’s greatest conservation achievements. The Wilderness Act also defined wilderness, allowed for the wilderness designation of federal wildlands, and set up a system for managing and protecting these lands. Sigurd played an essential role in the legislation, testifying before Congress, writing letters, building support locally and nationally, and helping to write the Wilderness Act.

  Richard Leonard, president of the Sierra Club; Olaus Murie, president of The Wilderness Society; and Sig, president of the National Parks Association, in 1953

  Sig was involved for almost sixty years in every significant battle to save the wilderness near Ely. His activism didn’t stop at Minnesota’s borders, though. Through his work with The Wilderness Society; the Izaak Walton League; the National Parks Association; the advisory board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments; and as a consultant on wilderness and national parks to US secretary of the interior Stewart Udall, Sig played a key role in preserving wilderness throughout the United States, including Point Reyes National Seashore in California, Cape Cod National Seashore, Alaska’s Arctic Wildlife Refuge, the Florida Everglades, and Indiana Dunes. He also named and helped establish Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota.

  During those years, he took many trips to Washington, DC, and throughout the United States to meet with elected officials and speak at hearings and before groups and organizations. He also wrote articles and essays to express his strong convictions and sway decision-makers. He asked, “Must we repeat over and over the ghastly mistakes of the past, desecrating the landscape, destroying its wildlife, poisoning its clear waters, and leaving scars that will take thousands of years to heal?”

  Five

  The Power of Words

  While Sigurd was in high school, the Ashland Chamber of Commerce sponsored an essay contest about the chamber’s values. Sig didn’t care about the organization or about the point of the essay, but he enjoyed writing, so he sat down, wrote an article, and submitted it. On the day the chamber of commerce announced that Sig had won first prize and a five-dollar gold piece, he realized that he had a gift for writing ­— or, as he said, “the ability to express myself.”

  After he and Elizabeth moved to Ely, Sig realized that he could share his passion about the outdoors and its spiritual importance in everyone’s life by writing about it.

  Becoming a published writer isn’t easy, though, and over the years, Sig received many rejections for his writings. Publishers told him, “This stuff won’t sell,” and said he should include more adventure in his writing. In response he said, “I have adventures of the spirit,” but, like all writers, he edited and revised his material many times before it was ready for publication. The first magazine article he wrote was turned down sixteen times, and his first and best-selling book, The Singing Wilderness, was rejected by many publishers before one accepted it. It was published in 1956 and quickly surged onto the New York Times Best Sellers list. Sig was ecstatic and proud. He was fifty-seven years old.

  Over the next twenty-five years, Sigurd wrote eight more books. His second, Listening Point, recounted stories of his cabin and personal retreat. The Lonely Land was an account of the voyageurs and his own voyageur expeditions. Minnesota’s senator Hubert H. Humphrey wrote to Sig in 1962, “My young son, Douglas, age 13, has been reading your excellent book entitled ‘The Lonely Land.’ He has enjoyed it so much. He insists that his Dad take him up into the north country next summer. You better prepare for some visitors because I am confident we are going to be up your way for some fishing and good outdoor recreation. Just wanted you to know that we enjoyed your book. We are proud of you. As ever, your friend.”

  Runes of the North, Sig’s fourth book, told of legends of the Native Americans and the North. His autobiography, Open Horizons, was published in 1969 and was his fifth book. The Hidden Forest combined the nature photography of Les Blacklock with Sigurd’s nature writing. Wilderness Days included photographs and drawings and compiled selected essays from his previous books season by season. Next, Reflections from the North Country showcased Sigurd’s wilderness philosophy based on his many speeches. Sigurd completed his last book, Of Time and Place, shortly before he died. It was published in 1982. In it he reminisced about his experiences in the wilderness.

  Of Sig’s many rejection letters, this one was especially embarrassing, because the agent assumed he was a young woman.

  Despite his successes, Sigurd struggled with depression and even contemplated suicide. He had many dark, unhappy, and painful times. Early in his career he wrote, “Yesterday was almost unbearable and today it is worse. I do not think I can continue another moment. Everything about my life here seems impossible.” Sigurd’s struggles were hard on his family. Over time, he conquered the hopelessness he felt by finding his passion and acting on it to accomplish something worthwhile. The realization that his ultimate purpose in life was to preserve the wilderness sustained and drove him to take on a national role in the wilderness preservation movement. Later he said that only when people “work for something bigger than themselves for an ideal that will benefit all mankind will they find real peace.”

  During his lifetime, Sigurd wrote hundreds of articles about the wilderness for magazines such as Sports Afield, Field & Stream, and Boys’ Life. He also wrote a column for the Minneapolis Star Journal and later a column syndicated by the North American Sportsman’s Bureau called “America Out of Doors.” Sig had a remarkable ability to capture the wilderness experience and the effect nature has on people. When people read Sig’s poetic writings, theyfelt as if they

  knew the area intimately even if they had never been there. They were easily convinced that wilderness had to be protected and that they must do what they could to help. Sig received thousands of letters from fans who were touched by his writings. They told him over and over, “You wrote what I felt.”

  Sig and his fans shared a mutual love for nature, which created a strong bond. Many asked for advice and revealed intimate details of their lives. Some told him that they thought of him as a friend even though they had never met. Sigurd was a faithful correspondent. He acknowledged most of the letters he received and often established relationships with those who had written to him. He responded to more than one fan by writing, “I also feel as though I know you too, and should we have the pleasure of meeting, I am sure we would hit it off as though we had known each other a lifetime.” For a time Sig wrote in the family’s small home, which was challenging for him and for the family. In 1937 he moved the family garage into the yard and converted it into a writing retreat. In this writing retreat, or “shack,” he could get away from the telephone, his family, visitors, and other distractions. The writing shack was a warm, inviting place. A red braided rug covered the floor. Sig could look out the windows and see wildlife or the wind blowing the trees in his yard. At first, he would spend hours after his job at the college every day writing at a manual typewriter on his heavy wood desk. Later, after he resigned, he wrote during most waking hours when he wasn’t fighting for the wilderness in Washington, DC, or other places. One morning he wrote to a friend,

  Sigurd wrote a syndicated newspaper column called “America Out of Doors” that focused on outdoors issues.

  Dear Winthrop,

  Back home again after many weeks of

  absence all over the country, the far west, the southwest, the Everglades of Florida, Washington, DC and places in between. It is five in the morning and I am out in my writing place away from the house. It is ten below and the pines and balsams are heavy with snow. Through the trees I get glimpses of town and the glitter of Christmas
tree lights. Not a sound, but the soft moaning of the wind. It is good to be back where I belong away from crowds and planes, noise and speed.

  The shack was filled with his papers in piles and in boxes stacked high, rolled up maps, books, rocks, other items he’d found in nature, and photos of him with friends. In the corner a pair of snowshoes leaned against the wall, ready for a walk in the snow. The writing shack stands there today just as Sig left it.

  Sig wrote in a garage that he turned into a writing shack. For a while, Sigurd wished that his middle name was Thorne (Thorne was his wife’s mother’s last name), and he signed his articles Sigurd Thorne Olson or Sigurd T. Olson. When their first son was born, Elizabeth and Sig named the baby Sigurd Thorne Olson, and Sigurd went back to using Sigurd F. Olson. The F stood for Ferdinand.

  Six

  Never Give Up