June 1948 (age 49)

In June 1948, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed the precedent-setting bill giving the Forest Service authority to buy up private property within the Superior National Forest. It was the end of the first part of a campaign waged by Sigurd Olson and other conservationists to get fly-in resorts and airplanes out of the canoe country. Minnesota Rep. John Blatnik, one of the bill's leading sponsors, thanked Sigurd for his help in getting the bill passed. "The publicity which you gave this through your excellent magazine and newspaper articles certainly brought results," he wrote, "for so many Congressmen told me of receiving letters and wires from interested organizations and individuals."

Meanwhile, Sigurd began directing his time and energy to part two of the campaign: convincing President Truman to create an airspace reservation over the roadless areas of Superior National Forest. It would be the first airspace reservation established for purposes other than public safety or national defense, so the convincing job would not be easy.

In June 1948 Sigurd and his older son took Saturday Evening Post reporter Harold Martin and photographer Frank Ross on a ten-day canoe trip through the Superior Roadless Areas and into Quetico Provincial Park, to provide background for a feature story about the airplane problem. The wildness of the Quetico must have contrasted even more than usual with the fly-in resorts on the American side: the park was officially closed because dry weather had created a high risk of forest fires, and Sigurd had received a special permit to enter. There were no other people in the entire park.

Sigurd Jr. recounted an anecdote about this trip that didn't make it into the biography. He recalled that his father took great pride in being able to quickly set up a campsite. Sig Jr. said:

Harold Martin asked, "How long does it take to set up a camp?" Dad said, "Thirty minutes if you know what you're doing." And Harold said, "No way." And Dad said, "Well, let me show you. In thirty minutes, I'll have supper cooking." And so we got to the Sarah Lake campsite, and in thirty minutes we had the tents up, beds laid out, firewood, and Dad was frying up whatever we were having for supper....We couldn't have done it, except he didn't have to tell me what to do and I didn't have to tell him what to do. We just had done it so many times together that everything just worked like clockwork....When he got to a campsite he didn't like people fussing around or playing around or horsing around; he liked to get the camp set up, and then do what you want to do.

Martin, who had traveled all over the world on assignments for the Post, clearly was impressed by the Olsons. "Of all the stories I've been on, none has ever been more delightful or more fun," he later wrote to Frank Hubachek of the Quetico-Superior Council. He said he especially would remember "the grand association with Sig and his son, which meant as much to me as did the pleasure of being in the wilderness itself. I could not have gone in with a better guide."

June 1963 (age 64)

Several honors came Sigurd's way in June 1963. He was elected into the Explorer's Club, received an honorary doctorate from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., and was inducted into the Izaak Walton League's Hall of Fame. Early in the month he was working on the proposal to create Voyageurs National Park, making corrections and suggestions on the Park Service's draft of the proposal, and meeting with Governor Rolvaag and officials from the Minnesota and Ontario Paper Co. He also saw doctors at the Mayo Clinic about his injured shoulder. As expected, they told him he would have to put off for another year his hope of a Voyageur's trip to Hudson Bay.

Later in the month Sigurd flew to Alaska with Ted Swem to continue their work surveying potential national parks in the young state. More on that next month, as much of their trip was in July.