Sigurd F. Olson

Sigurd F. Olson is known by a generation of wilderness canoemen as the Bourgeois, as voyageurs of old called their trusted leaders. The author of The Singing Wilderness, Listening Point, The Lonely Land, and Runes of the North is one of our country’s well-known woodsmen and naturalists. Born in Chicago in 1899, educated at the University of Wisconsin (Geology) and the University of Illinois (Plant and Animal Ecology), he was a professor and dean until he began devoting himself entirely to wilderness interpretation and its preservation. Mr. Olson is a former President of the National Parks Association, and is still a member of its Board of Trustees. He serves on the Council of the Wilderness Society and as a consultant to the Izaak Walton League of America, the President’s Quetico-Superior Committee, and since 1952 the Department of the Interior. His home is in Ely, Minnesota, gateway to the canoe country.