October 1949 (age 50)

As Sigurd Olson waited at home in Ely, Minn. for the Justice Department to approve or disapprove the proposal for a presidential executive order creating an airspace reservation over the American portion of the canoe country wilderness, two articles that he wrote about the issue and the need for an international treaty to protect the Quetico-Superior were published. "Swift as the Wild Goose Flies" appeared in the autumn issue of National Parks Magazine, and "Voyageurs' Country" appeared in a major Canadian magazine, National Home Monthly.

October 1964 (age 65)

Not much to report. Sigurd was at Fort Robinson State Park in Nebraska at the start of the month to speak at a conference of National Park superintendents from the Midwest, and on October 22 he spoke in St. Paul at a conference of the Minnesota Education Association. Perhaps most interesting was a meeting that Sigurd seems to have missed. On October 14, a strongly divided National Parks Advisory Board approved in principle the construction of a transmountain road through Great Smokey Mountain National Park. The issue was so bitter that board chairman Stan Cain later recalled in a letter to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall: "Harsh words were said, some in anger. It seemed that one recreationist member might have a stroke. He was flushed. His voice shook. At one point he walked from the room. It was because of the danger of complete disruption of the Board's functioning that some who felt otherwise made some compromise such as the Board approved in principle of the idea of a transmountain road in the Smokies.... " Sigurd would eventually play an essential role in stopping the project.