Singing Wilderness (A Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book) - Softcover

Olson, Sigurd F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816629927 ISBN 13: 9780816629923

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, 1997

Synopsis

The Singing Wilderness is Sigurd Olson's first and best-selling book, with over 70,000 copies sold in hardcover since its release in 1956. Now available in paperback for the first time, this volume established Olson as a major writer renowned for the beauty of his prose and the clarity of his vision.

"The singing wilderness has to do with the calling of the loons, northern lights, and the great silences of a land lying northwest of Lake Superior", Olson writes. "It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life that is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness".

Olson tells his story through descriptions of the simple events in nature that bring meaning to his life: picking berries, looking for pine knots, fly-fishing, hiking through the forest, paddling a canoe. "The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind", he writes. "Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shores".

About this title

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 c

From the Back Cover

As meaningful today as it was when Sigurd F. Olson wrote it, The Singing Wilderness is an essential antidote to the trials of modern life. This unique volume, beautifully illustrated by Francis Lee Jaques, will be a welcome addition to any nature lover's bookshelf or backpack.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0816629927
• ISBN 13: 9780816629923
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256