November 1952 (age 53)

Nothing to report.

November 1967 (age 68)

Sigurd lost an argument with his friend Stewart Udall, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. [Udall is behind Sigurd in the middle of the photo, taken in Alaska in 1965 during a National Park Service Advisory Board meeting.] Udall decided to let Show Me Power Co. build a power line across the Ozark National Scenic Riverways and the Current River. He argued that otherwise the power line would have to be 20 miles longer through essentially the same type of country, therefore doing much more damage. Also, the line would have to go underground within 25 years or be removed from the park. As a consultant to the Department of the Interior, Sigurd had access to Udall and often was persuasive, but not this time. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: "I fought it, the Regional staff at Omaha did too, as well as the Director of the NPS in Washington. We did what we could and now picking up the pieces, it doesn't look as bad as at first glance."