Endnotes

1. See Howard R. Flint, "Wasted Wilderness" American Forests (July 1926), pp. 407-410. For Leopold's article, see "The Last Stand of the Wilderness," American Forests (October 1925), pp. 599-604.

2. Sigurd Olson, "Why Wilderness?" (American Forests, September 1938), p. 395.

3. Marshall to Olson, November 12, 1938, Sigurd F. Olson Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. [Note: unless otherwise documented, all letters and journal entries cited in this article are part of the Sigurd Olson Papers.]

4. Frank Graham, Jr., "Leave it to the Bourgeois: Sigurd Olson and His Wilderness Quest," Audubon (November 1980), p. 37.

5. Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 175.

6. For background on Swedish Baptists, the following is especially useful: George M. Stephenson, The Religious Aspects of Swedish Immigration (New York, 1969). Also helpful, although written from the perspective of advocates, are J.O. Backlund, Swedish Baptists in America: A History (Chicago, 1933); and Gustavus W. Schroeder, History of the Swedish Baptists in Sweden and America (New York, 1898).

7. Sigurd F. Olson, "The Power of Prayer," undated essay ca 1960s.

8. Mildred Olson to Robert K. Olson, November 30, 1993, copy in author's possession.

9. Sigurd Olson to John [no last name], November 20, 1976; Sigurd Olson to Walt Goldsworthy, May 15, 1973, copy in author's possession.

10. Sigurd F. Olson, The Singing Wilderness (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), p. 8.

11. Sigurd F. Olson, "The Old Ones Speak," April 8, 1966.

12. The anecdote about Chauncy Burroughs comes from Edward J. Renehan, Jr., John Burroughs: An American Naturalist (Post Mills, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 1992), pp. 18-19. The anecdote about Daniel Muir comes from Frederick Turner, Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985), p. 23.

13. Renehan, John Burroughs, pp. 14, 45-46.

14. See Turner, Rediscovering America, p. 146, and Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness, pp. 191-192. Turner (p. 256) argues that Muir was "evidently a Christian," but one who "seemed joyously free and untroubled with doctrinal questions." Oelschlager (p. 91) makes clear that Muir's "heresy...is overwhelming." A more recent compilation of papers presented at a conference about John Muir, called John Muir: Life and Work, Sally M. Miller, ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), contains strong evidence for considering Muir a Christian along the lines suggested by Turner.

15. This information is based on drafts of Olson's autobiography, Open Horizons (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969). The drafts are in his collected papers at the Minnesota Historical Society. Olson's leadership of the Student Volunteers begs another comparison to John Muir, who, as a student at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1860s, was elected president of the university's YMCA.

16. Olson, journal entry, January 14, 1930.

17. From Olson's University of Wisconsin transcripts and from the university's course catalogue from the period.

18. Olson, journal entry, January 14, 1930.

19. Kenneth Olson to Sigurd Olson, January 3, 1961.

20. Olson, journal entry, January 14, 1930.

21. Olson, journal entry, January 20, 1930.

22. Olson, journal entry, January 20, 1930.

23. Olson, journal entry, January 20, 1930.

24. Sigurd Ferdinand Olson, "The Supernatural Instinct," dated December 26, 1933.

25. Olson, "The Supernatural Instinct."

26. Olson, "The Supernatural Instinct;" Olson to Olaus Murie, November 11, 1956.

27. There was no Baptist Church in Ely when the Olsons moved there in 1923. Olson's widow, Elizabeth, told me that had there been a Baptist Church they would have joined out of a desire to keep peace with L.J. Olson. As it was, their official religious affiliation remained Baptist until after Olson's father died in 1953. At that time Sigurd and Elizabeth became full members of the Presbyterian Church.

28. Olson, journal entry, November 7, 1933; Ida May Olson to Sigurd Olson, August 3, 1936.

29. John Burroughs, Accepting the Universe: Essays in Naturalism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920), p. 11; John Burroughs, The Light of Day: Religious Discussions and Criticisms From the Naturalist's Point of View (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1900), p. 116.

30. Olson, journal entry, January 13, 1947.

31. Sigurd Olson to Robert K. Olson and Sigurd Olson, Jr., ca 1943.

32. Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1945), p. 29.

33. Sigurd F. Olson, Reflections From the North Country (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976).

34. Pierre Lecomte du Nouy, Human Destiny (New York: Longmans, Gress and Co., 1947), p. 104. The emphasis is his. For more on Lecomte du Nouy, see George N. Shuster and Ralph E. Thorson, ed., Evolution in Perspective: Commentaries in Honor of Pierre Lecomte du Nouy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970).

35. Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957), p. 212.

36. Lewis Mumford, The Conduct of Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1951), p. 71.

37. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959).

38. The quotes are from notes Teilhard wrote to himself in 1919 as a guideline for his future writing. They are quoted in Lawrence S. Cunningham, The Catholic Experience (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1987), p. 126.

39. Olson to Robert H. Day, December 29, 1959.

40. Olson, Singing Wilderness, pp. 130-131.

41. He mentions this a number of times in his personal journals and notes; see, for example, his note from January 8, 1960, titled "Runes of the North," or an undated note from August of that year, in which he says, "I must bridge the gap between Eiseley and my audience of common people, the non intellectuals...who feel deeply but are groping for ideas...."

42. Mark Greer to Olson, November 11, 1957.

43. Author's interview.

44. Oelschlaeger, Idea of Wilderness, p. 339.

45. Ibid., p. 202.

46. Sigurd F. Olson, Runes of the North (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1963), p. 14; Olson, Reflections, p. 88.

47. Olson to George Laing, June 30, 1955.

48. Olson, Reflections, p. 49.

49. Loren Eiseley, The Unexpected Universe (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1964), p. 87.

50. Olson to Angus Cameron, February 16, 1961.

51. Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness, p. 341.

52. Sigurd Olson, "Reflections of a Guide," Field and Stream, June 1928, p. 28.

53. Marshall to Olson, November 12, 1938.

54. Olson to Robert Marshall, November 22, 1938.

55. Olson, Singing Wilderness, pp. 198-199.

56. Sigurd F. Olson, "The Spiritual Need," in Wilderness in a Changing World, ed. Bruce M. Kilgore (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1966), pp. 218, 215; Olson, Reflections, p. 35. Olson's "coming home" remark may have been based on the opening paragraph of John Muir's Our National Parks (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1901), in which Muir said that "going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."

57. For the Jung quotes, see The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, ed. Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, and William McGuire (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956), 5:28. The Olson quote comes from Sig Olson, "Search for the Wild," Sports Afield, May 1932, p. 51.

It is unclear when Olson first became aware of Jung's theories. He often discussed Jung with his son Robert and Robert's wife, Yvonne, during the early 1950s, and said he saw Jung's research as confirming his own beliefs. See Robert K. Olson to author, December 29, 1990, in author's possession. Olson may well have learned about Jung in the mid-thirties, when Jung received a significant amount of publicity in popular magazines.

58. James M. Glover, "Romance, Recreation, and Wilderness: Influences on the Life and Work of Bob Marshall," Environmental History Review 14 (Winter 1990): 30. Glover's biography of Marshall is A Wilderness Original: The Life of Bob Marshall (Seattle: The Moutaineers, 1986). Glover recently has been studying the life of Olaus Murie. See his articles "Thinking Like a Wolverine: The Ecological Evolution of Olaus Murie," Environmental Review 13 (Fall/Winter 1989): 29-46; and "Sweet Days of a Naturalist: Olaus Murie in Alaska, 1920-26," Forest and Conservation History 36 (July 1992): 132-140.

59. Sigurd F. Olson, "The Long Long Dances," April 15, 1966, p. 3. This is a chapter draft of his autobiography, Open Horizons, published in 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf.