June 1951 (age 52)

After twenty-two years of being one-third owner of Border Lakes Outfitting Company, Sigurd sold his share to his longtime partner and neighbor, M.W. Peterson. ("Pete" is in the middle of the photo at left, taken during a hunting trip in 1950. Elizabeth Olson is at left, and Florence Peterson, Pete's wife, is at right.] The company had barely been profitable in the previous several years, and Sigurd hoped to invest in something with a greater return that, when combined with his earnings from freelance writing and from his expected future salary as an editor of North Country magazine, would provide him and Elizabeth with an acceptable income.

The Border Lakes brought him five thousand dollars; his capital gain on the twenty-two year investment was less than nine hundred dollars. That summer, while he was deciding how to invest it, a friend from Pennsylvania told him about an oil and gas development near his home that promised to bring in a lot of money. "Overall," the friend wrote, "I don't see how we can miss and those of us on the ground had a chance to pick the best locations....I'd hate to have you lose money but would feel sick if we hit it big and you were not it, so count ten and roll the bones."

At the urging of a close and trusted colleague, and with encouragement from Elizabeth, Sigurd invested four thousand dollars in Pamaco Gas and Oil in October 1951. It is possible that he invested more after this initial plunge; forty years later, Elizabeth thought the total investment amounted to ten thousand dollars. In any event, the oil and gas development did not pan out, and the Olsons eventually lost their money.

June 1966 (age 67)

Nothing significant to report. Sigurd spent a week in Boston, but much of the time he was home, probably because in July he would leave home for a month and go to Alaska on work for the National Park Service.