December 1950 (age 51)

Sigurd had some key meetings in Toronto about the Quetico-Superior movement and treaty, and in a letter to his wife, Elizabeth, he expressed excitement and relief:

My mission here is accomplished and I am relieved and happy. When I think what an impossible thing it all seemed last Sunday when I arrived, it seems nothing short of miraculous that I have done what I set out to do. I know that again prayer has helped me.

1. The Canadian revision of the treaty draft is done and I have just finished a copy of all the changes Harold and I worked out and will take it with me to Washington. I have worked with him every day and last night I got up after I went to bed and worked for three straight hours. However, it is done and will meet Charley in washington on Monday to look it over again and possibly go to the State Dept. I never dreamed Harold Walker would agree so readily to our strategy and really go to work.

2. We have a Canadian QS secretary, a chap of about 35 by the name of Don O'Hearn, an awfully likeable chap who is smart as a whip, knows his way around and is full of ideas. He is going to work for $250 a month. He knows Premier Frost and can talk to him direct, also knows most everyone else both high and low. I guess I sold him on the idea because he first wanted $7500 per year and now it is down to $3000, some drop. He has worked with me all week and we have spent from three to five hours together every day. He caught on fast and it won't take him long to get under way. Harold is delighted with him and I am sure the other members will be too....At last after two years of trying, this has happened. Think what it will mean to me to have someone like him carrying the ball here....Now for the first time, things will move.

December 1965 (age 66)

In Washington early in the month, Sigurd reported to fellow National Park advisor Frank Masland that "I stopped temporarily" a transmountain road through Great Smoky Mountains National Park, convincing Interior Secretary Stewart Udall to hold off permission. At the end of the month he signed a contract with McGraw-Hill for a book on northern waterways as part of its American Wilderness series. The manuscript was to be completed by January 1969, but Sigurd would never find the time to write it and would eventually ask the publisher to cancel the contract.

In a letter to National Park Service Director George Hartzog on December 28, Sigurd once again shows his general philosophy that the important thing is to get an important wild land under an official designation, and later worry about boundary details. He's commenting here on a report setting criteria for designating wilderness areas in national parks:

On page 2 under Mining and Prospecting, I cannot help but feel a little uneasy at the prospect of actually excluding from wilderness status any claim areas with their corridors. In view of the proposed recommendation to discontinue would it not be wise to consider temporary inclusion of such areas pending final decisions as to prospecting and mining, rather than make irrevocable determinations now. On page 3 under Inholdings, I have the same uneasiness in giving private holdings with the inevitable corridors of access permanent status when we all know they are temporary. Please give some thought to language under both Mining and Private Inholdings that will strengthen the Service's hand in future decisions.