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Under the Big Top: celebrating Sigurd Olson
How do you celebrate a life lived close to nature? How do you honor a life that has inspired millions to seek their own wild places? Perhaps it is through music, poetry, wilderness photographs, and asking the audience to howl like wolves in the wild. That was the scene under the Big Top on the evening of July 26th when Friends of the Apostle Islands and Wisconsin Green Fire cosponsored “Song For Wild,” a multimedia concert celebrating the legacy of one of the greatest conservationists of the 20th century, Sigurd Olson.
The show featured the writings of Sigurd Olson set to music by Warren Nelson and illustrated by photographs of Olson and his beloved Northwoods, as well as the musical talents of Ed Willett, Randy Sabien, Otis McLennon, Jack Gunderson, Severin Behnen, and Cheryl Leah.
But through it all, it celebrated the life of Sigurd Olson.
Sigurd Olson near his home in Ely, Minnesota
“It was good to lie there in our bags watching the glow of our dying fire and the deeper glow of sunset beyond;” Sigurd Olson wrote in his book Wilderness Days, “but most of all it was good to feel the ground again and to know we were back in a country we loved.” It is a sentiment and a feeling known well to many who have camped in the Apostle Islands.
While conservationist Sigurd Olson is most associated with Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area, his roots run deep in the Apostle Islands area. Born in 1899 in Chicago, Olson spent much of his childhood in northern Wisconsin. “In 1916, 1917, and 1918, I canoeed all around Ashland, and used to keep a canoe down at the waterfront near Fish Creek Slough,” he said in an interview. “Sometimes, I would canoe out to Long Island at the head of Chequamegon Bay.”
Olson studied agriculture, botany, geology, and ecology at Northland College in Ashland and went on to positions with the Wilderness Society and as a special consultant to Secretary of the Interior Steward Udall during the effort to protect the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore beginning in the early 1960’s. He became a leading voice on the values of wilderness through his books Listening Point, The Singing Wilderness, and more. Sigurd Olson died in 1982 while snowshoeing with his beloved wife Elizabeth near their home in Ely, Minnesota.
Jeff Rennicke describes Olson’s love for the wilderness
“Sigurd Olson’s love for the wilderness was a strong current that still flows through the heart of the Northwoods, including the Apostle Islands,” says Friends Executive Director Jeff Rennicke, who shared the stage with Meleesa Johnson and Fred Clark of Wisconsin Green Fire to introduce the show.
“His writings put into words many of the timeless feelings that visitors to the Apostle feel while paddling, looking up at the stars around the campfire, and exploring their own ‘wilderness days’ in the lakeshore,” Rennicke said.
Warren Nelson
Meleesa Johnson – Wisconsin Green Fire
Bob Jauch photos – click to enlarge
Fred Clark – Wisconsin Green Fire
Friends would like to thank the songwriters, storytellers, and musicians who brought Sigurd Olson’s words to the Big Top stage, and Wisconsin Green Fire for the chance to co-sponsor an evening of songs, poetry, wilderness celebration, and howling like a wolf.
Additional topics related to this article | Community Outreach | Conservation | Park and Local History
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