Impact & Influence

Biography

Major Works

Scholarly Works

Audio/Video

Impact & Influence

Inspired by his love of the great outdoors, Olson wrote his first published article after a canoe trip in Minnesota. Eventually he went on to publish dozens more articles in magazines such as Field and Stream, Sports Afield and American Forests, as well as his own syndicated newspaper column. He received his first book contract in 1955, and The Singing Wilderness soon became a New York Times bestseller. Although he was a dedicated teacher and nature advocate, his true passion might have been writing, as he cited needing time to write as reason to resign from several prominent positions. In 1974, Olson received the John Burroughs Medal, the highest honor in nature writing. The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin encourages students to be kind stewards of the land.

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Biography

Nature's champion Sigurd F. Olson was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1899 and soon moved to Wisconsin, where he grew up near the shores of Lake Superior. He earned his undergraduate degree in agriculture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and soon began what would become an extensive teaching career in Minnesota. He returned to Illinois briefly to earn his master's degree in zoology from the University of Illinois and penned his thesis on the timber wolf. As a high school and community college teacher, Olson taught agriculture, geology, biology and physiology classes. From 1936 to 1947 he served as dean of Minnesota's Ely Junior College. Married with two sons, Olson spent his time field guiding and campaigning to protect northern Minnesotan land from commercial development. He served as president of both the National Parks Association and the Wilderness Society. Thanks to his and others' tireless efforts, President Nixon signed an act creating Voyagers National Park, and President Carter established full protection of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Olson died of a heart attack while snowshoeing in Ely in 1982.

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Major Works

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 (published posthumously, 1998)
Of Time and Place (published posthumously, 1998)
"Wilderness Canoe County" (motion picture, President's Quetico-Superior Committee, 1949)

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Scholarly Works

A Wilderness Within: The Life of Sigurd F. Olson, David Backes

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Audio/Video

Sorry, none available at this time.

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