The
Singing Wilderness (The Fesler-Lampert Minnesota
Heritage Book Series) by Sigurd
F. Olson, Francis Lee Jaques (Illustrator)
This book has 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 of
the relationships to be found in nature combine here in vivid evocations
of the sights, the sounds, the vast stillnesses, and the events of the
wilderness as the seasons succeed each other. But Mr. Olson is not
content merely to "describe; he probes for meanings that will lead
the reader to a different and more revealing way of looking at the
out-of-doors and to a deeper sense of its eternal values. In each of the
thirty-four chapters of The Singing Wilderness he has sought to capture
an essential quality of our magnificent lake and forest heritage. He
shows us what can be read from the rocks of the great Canadian Shield;
he offers a delightful essay on the virtues of pine knots as fuel; he
writes of the ways of a canoe, of flashing trout in the pools of the
Isabella, of tamarack bogs, caribou moss, the flight of wild geese,
timber wolves, and the birds of the ski trails. And much more, with
something to satisfy every taste for wilderness experience.
Superbly illustrated with 38 black-and-white drawings
by Francis Lee Jaques, The Singing Wilderness is a book that no lover of
nature will want to be without. To anyone who contemplates a vacation in
the lake country of northern Minnesota and adjoining Canada, it is the
perfect vade mecum.
About The Author
Sigurd F. Olson was for more than thirty years a wilderness
guide in the Quetico-Superior country, and no one knew with the same
intimacy the mysteries of the lakes and forests of that magnificent
primitive area. To the many out-of-doorsmen who canoed and portaged with
him through this wilderness, he was known honorifically as the Bourgeois
-- as the voyageurs of old called their trusted leaders through this
same region.
Mr. Olson was born in Chicago in 1899, and educated at
the University of Wisconsin and the University of Illinois. For several
years he taught biology at Ely Junior College and later served as Dean.
He was President of the National Parks Association, a member of its
Board of Trustees, and was for years active in organizations devoted to
conservation problems.
Mr. Olson was a frequent contributor to magazines
concerned with the outdoors, and is the author of several books
including Listening
Point, The
Lonely Land, Runes
of the North, Reflection
from the North Country, and Of
Time and Place, and more.
Until his death in 1982, he made his home with his wife, Elizabeth, in
Ely, Minnesota, gateway to his beloved Quetico-Superior country.
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