December 1953 (age 54)

On December 14, Sigurd for the first time meets with a U.S. president, getting an opportunity to talk to President Dwight Eisenhower about the Quetico-Superior wilderness program. He wrote to friends:

We went through the usual maneuvers attendant to such a grand occasion and at last were ushered into the Holy presence. Ike sat slouched at his desk most of the time sort of picking an off tooth with the handle of his glasses. Once in a while he would look up and smile or make a wise remark. We were with him about twenty minutes, were supposed to be there about ten. He evinced the greatest interest in some colored enlargements of the area, Sarah Lake, Curtain Falls, some aerials etc, plus some good maps. As a military man of course the maps were it and I know he thought as he looked at the lakes, how in the devil could an expedition ever get through that stuff. He has a good firm handshake, fine steady eyes and looked a little weary of affairs of state and I don't wonder. Well it is over. We decided against pictures as too time consuming but the newspapers were pretty well covered with reports and prepared releases. Should the time ever come when we need Ike's support, it won't be too hard to get, I feel.

December 1968 (age 69)

Sigurd opened the month in a Florida hospital recovering from a major heart attack. (See the previous entry for November 1968). In the hospital, he read Will and Ariel Durant's The Lessons of History. This is a month of recovery, of literally getting his feet back on the ground. Too weak to travel after he leaves the hospital in the middle of the month, he leases an apartment in Sarasota with his wife, Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, Sigurd learns that the incoming Nixon Administration has received his name as someone to consider for "high federal office," presumably as director of the National Park Service or possibly Secretary of the Interior. The administration's C. Calvert Knudsen asks if he would be available now or in the future. Sigurd, of course, must decline.