November 1948 (age 49)

In November 1948 the U.S. Forest Service was poring over a document Olson had written for the agency, justifying a presidential executive order creating an airspace reservation over the Superior National Forest Roadless Areas (known today as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness). Once satisfied, the agency was to pass the document on to the Agriculture Department's solicitor.

Meanwhile, news of the airspace reservation request reached the general public for the first time, through an article by Minnesota Conservation Commissioner Chester Wilson in the The Conservation Volunteer. On November 10, soon after the article came out, the Gunflint Trail Association, which consisted largely of resort owners along the eastern edge of the roadless areas, voted 14 to 4 in favor of an air ban. But the Ely Chamber of Commerce opposed the ban, was angry that the Forest Service didn't consult local groups before proposing the executive order, and claimed that Regional Forester Jay Price had promised that airplane use in the area never would be forbidden. Ely business leaders and other airplane supporters began putting together their strategy to fight Sigurd Olson and the wilderness supporters he represented.

November 1963 (age 64)

Sigurd spent November 4-6 in Big Bend National Park for a meeting of the National Park Service's advisory board. Sigurd advocated that the board make a strong statement in favor of biological control of insect pests in the national parks, with chemical control to be used only when absolutely necessary. He also gave what an assistant to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall described as a "stirring" one-hour speech on Alaskan wildlands, urging the Interior Department and the National Park Service to put under protection many of the areas he had been to during his trip with Ted Swem earlier in the year. (For more on that trip see "This Month in Olson History" for July 1963.)