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The personal diaries of one of America’s best-loved naturalists, revealing his difficult and inspiring path to finding his voice and becoming a writer Few writers are as renowned for their eloquence about the natural world, its power and fragility, as Sigurd F. Olson (1899–1982). Before he could give expression to The Singing Wilderness, however, he had to find his own voice. It is this struggle, the painstaking and often simply painful process of becoming the writer and conservationist now familiar to us, that Olson documented in the journal entries gathered here. Written mostly during the years from 1930 to 1941, Olson’s journals describe the dreams and frustrations of an aspiring wr...
A selection of Sigurd F. Olson's finest writing on the splendor of the great outdoors, hand-picked by the master himself
To do with the calling of loons, with northern lights, and the great silences of land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life which is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs." Thus the author sets the theme and tone of this enthralling book of discovery about one of the few great primitive areas in our country which have withstood the pressures of civilization. Acute natural perceptivity and a profound knowledge...
Essays discuss conservation, rapids, lakes, portages, wildlife, and the Quetico-Superior Wilderness
Olson is best known for his many essays that express the wonder, awe, and peace he found in the wilderness. Olson's popular books, including The Singing Wilderness, Listening Point, and Reflections from the North Country, are beloved by generations of readers, and frequently appeared on best-seller lists across the nation. The lyricism and evocative beauty of his prose became a model for nature writers like Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard. Olson was a recipient of the John Burroughs Medal, the highest honor in nature writing. A Wilderness Within looks beyond the environmental battles and books to reveal the inner forces that drove Sigurd Olson. Backes details Olson's painful path to becoming a writer, and the physical and emotional toll that his activism and writing took from him. For this biography, Backes conducted interviews with Olson's family and had complete access to Olson's papers, diaries, correspondence, and photographs.
Of Time and Place is a legacy from one of the best-loved woodsman writers of our time. To the outdoorsmen who often canoed and portaged with him through the northern Lake country, Sigurd Olson was affectionately known as the Bourgeois—the name that voyageurs gave two hundred years ago to the trusted guides who took them over this same territory. And in this, his last book, completed just before his death in early 1982, Olson is our guide through his wide-ranging memories of a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of the wilderness, especially of his beloved Quetico-Superior country. He recalls his many friendships of trail and woods and portage, his favorite campsites, the stories behind ...
“Listening Point tells of what I have seen and heard on a bare glaciated spit of rock in the Quetico-Superior country. Each time I have gone there I have found something new that has opened up whole realms of thought and interest. From it I have glimpsed the immensity of space and at times the grandeur of creation. “I believe that I have experienced there one of the oldest satisfactions of man; when as he gazed upon the earth and sky, he sensed the first vague glimmerings of meaning in the universe. I know that while we were born with curiosity and wonder, and our early years are full of the adventure they bring, such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, ...
In Runes of the North Sigurd F. Olson explores the haunting appeal of the wilderness. He recounts how the legends of the northern vastness of Canada and Alaska have influenced him, weaving the tales and myths with his own stories and experiences as an explorer, writer, grandfather, and biologist. Now available in paperback for the first time, Runes of the North is a mystical and reflective guide to the northern wilderness written with a oneness and communion with nature that is unique to Olson's pen. It is a work filled with beauty, wisdom, and renewal.
Written in the last years of his life, Reflections from the North Country is often considered Sigurd Olson's most intellectually significant work. In an account alive with anecdote and insight, Olson outlines the wilderness philosophy he developed while working as an outspoken advocate for the conservation of America's natural heritage.Based on speeches delivered at town meetings and government hearings, this book joins The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point as the core of Olson's work. Upon its initial publication in 1976, Reflections from the North Country, with Olson's unique combination of lyrical nature writing and activism, became an inspiration to the burgeoning environmental move...