North Country History with Rob Burg
Your podcast on the Forest History of the Great Lakes Region. The forests of the Great Lakes have been home to people for centuries and have provided great resources and wealth, shelter, food, and recreation for many. But in the wake of these uses, the region has been environmentally damaged from deforestation, fire, and erosion, and are still recovering to this day. I will be your guide for exploring the forests and sharing stories of the forests and the people who have called them home.
About Rob Burg: Hi! I'm an environmental historian specializing on the forest history of the Great Lakes Region. I am a mostly lifelong Michigan resident and studied at Eastern Michigan University for both my undergraduate degree in History and graduate studies in Historic Preservation. My 35-year professional life has mostly been in history museums, including the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the Michigan History Museum, and the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. I began my environmental history career with managing both the Hartwick Pines Logging Museum and the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum for the Michigan History Museum system, directing the Lovells Museum of Trout Fishing History, archivist for the Devereaux Memorial Library in Grayling, Michigan, and as the Interpretive Resources Coordinator for the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska. I am proud that the first person to ever call me an environmental historian was none other than Dr. William Cronon, the dean of American Environmental History.
North Country History with Rob Burg
Sigurd Olson and the Meaning of Wilderness
In this week's episode, we depart a little bit from what we've been talking about and get a little philosophical regarding forests and the wilderness. I want to introduce listeners today to Sigurd F. Olson (1899-1982), one of my personal heroes. Sigurd Olson was an educator, canoe guide, outfitter, writer, and a leading voice in the preservation of wilderness.
Sigurd Olson, the son of Swedish immigrants, his father being a Swedish Baptist minister, was born in Chicago and grew up in small towns in northern Wisconsin. After being educated at Northland College (Ashland, Wisconsin), and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Sig and his wife, Elizabeth, found their way to Ely, Minnesota where he was hired as a high school science teacher. To help make ends meet, as his family grew with the addition of two sons, Sigurd T., and Robert, Sig began working summers as a canoe guide in the Quetico-Superior border lakes, now known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area. In 1929, Sigurd and two partners purchased a canoe outfitters in nearby Winton, Minnesota. His high school teaching position would lead him to be on the faculty of Ely Junior College, and eventually as the college's dean. During this period, Sigurd Olson also began writing, first for outdoor magazines and periodicals, with his subjects ranging from canoeing, fishing, camping, and other recreational pursuits, to his greatest topic, the importance of wilderness on our well being.
This latter subject matter would become his life pursuit. Making Ely his homebase for the remainder of his life, Sig became one of the great voices in the movement to protect wilderness areas. He was not as well known as his contemporary Aldo Leopold; Sig's voice was able to reach both the great leaders and also the everyday outdoorsman. He found his greatest audiences through nine books that he wrote beginning with The Singing Wilderness in 1956. His last book, Of Time and Place, was published posthumously in 1982. Sigurd Olson also served as president of the National Parks Association and The Wilderness Society. In the 1960s he was a part of a special advisory committee to Stewart Udall, the Secretary of the Interior for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Sigurd Olson's accolades include being the namesake of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland College, and the recipient of the John Burroughs Medal in 1974 for being recognized as the year's best nature writer.
Sigurd F. Olson died on January 13, 1982 from a heart attack while snowshoeing at his cabin, Listening Point.
Today, Olson's cabin, Listening Point, the subject of his 1958 book of the same name, is owned by The Listening Point Foundation. Their office is in the former Sigurd and Elizabeth Olson residence in Ely. The residence also includes Olson's writing shack. The last sentence that he typed remains in his typewriter: A New Adventure is coming up/ and I'm sure it will be/ A good one.
All three sites are open for visitors, in season.
Sigurd Olson's books and books about him:
- The Singing Wilderness (1956)
- Listening Point (1958)
- The Lonely Land (1961)
- Runes of the North (1963)
- Open Horizons (1969)
- The Hidden Forest (1969)
- Wilderness Days (1972)
- Reflections From the North Country (1976)
- Of Time and Place (1982)
- Songs of the North. Howard Frank Mosher, ed. (1987)
- The Collected Works of Sigurd F. Olson: The Early Writings, 1921–1934. Mike Link, ed. (1988)
- The Collected Works of Sigurd F. Olson: The College Years, 1935–1944. Mike Link, ed. (1990)
- The Meaning