September 1949 (age 50)

Sigurd spent much of September 1949 in Washington, nursing the canoe country airspace reservation request through the Department of Agriculture, whose solicitor approved it on September 23, and into the hands of the Justice Department. He answered questions asked by the Justice attorneys, delivered briefs prepared by the President's Quetico-Superior Committee, and showed his documentary film, "Wilderness Canoe Country." The White House staff also saw the film, and Sigurd kept in close contact with President Truman's secretary, William D. Hassett, who assured Sigurd that the Justice Department would approve the order.

September 1964 (age 65)

This was a month of jubilation. On September 3, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Wilderness Act, giving immediate protection to 54 areas across the nation, totalling just over 9 million acres. In addition, it established a review process to examine another 34 national forest primitive areas, totalling another 5.4 million acres. Finally, it set up a review process for primitive areas under Department of Interior jurisdiction, including national parks, monuments, wildlife and game refuges. The huge amount of wilderness reviews, legislative work, and everything else associated with implementation of the Act would force conservation groups to develop the professionalism that was necessary to avoid losing wilderness to National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service foot dragging. This would lead to a sea change in the character of major national environmental groups such as the Wilderness Society. They would become much more bureaucratic and legalistic in the years ahead, which did not sit well with many old-timers such as Sigurd Olson. (In the photo, he is presenting pens to Mardy Murie and Alice Zahniser. Their husbands, Olaus Murie and Howard Zahnisers, played key roles in the effort to pass the legislation, and both had died shortly before the bill became law.)