November 1954 (age 55)

During the summer and fall of 1954, Sigurd and many others became involved in the fight to prevent construction of a dam near Echo Park in the center of Dinosaur National Monument. Stopping the dam, which was part of a massive proposal called the Colorado River Storage Project, became the most important conservation cause of the decade. It posed a clear test of the inviolability of the national park system, and wilderness activists believed that if the park system failed the test, the chances of establishing a national wilderness preservation system were remote. The nation's major conservation groups, as well as many minor ones, worked together in unprecedented fashion. The Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the National Parks Association had the most direct stake in the issue, but they were small organizations and relied on the cooperation and clout of such large groups as the Izaak Walton League, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, and the Garden Club of America. The groups shared membership lists, coordinated mailings, and divided lobbying efforts to take advantage of each group's relative strength with different members of Congress.

Sigurd's most important contribution to the campaign was to help organize the strategy session and give the keynote talk at a major meeting in New York on November 17, 1954. Representatives of twenty-eight conservation groups attended the conference, held in the Baroque Suite of the Plaza Hotel. The meeting was especially important because division was beginning to appear in the ranks of the conservationists, with some saying the strategy should be to oppose the entire Colorado River Storage Project and others arguing that the fight should focus only on Echo Park Dam and the threat to Dinosaur National Monument. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club and the most visible conservationist in the fight, was among those who wanted to oppose the entire project. Sigurd disagreed. He wrote on November 15 to another conservationist:

I know what Dave Brower will think. Don't feel for an instant that I do not understand the broader implications or the need of re-study. I feel, however, that the wisest strategy now is to make Dinosaur the major issue; that we should be in the position of fighting for a clear-cut principle, rather than get involved in the multitudinous ramifications of the entire Upper Colorado Project.

He repeated this viewpoint in his keynote address at the conference and spoke about the values of such places as the wild canyons of Dinosaur National Monument:

The mere existence of [such wildlands] serves as a reminder of our past, gives us respect for the courage, hardship and vision of our forefathers, and serves as balance wheels to the speed and pressures of a high-powered civilization. It is good for moderns to experience the wilderness. It is part of the cultural background of America....Any development in any national park or monument which destroys [this], is breaking faith with the original intent of Congress to pass these areas on unimpaired.

Sigurd's view that conservationists should concentrate strictly on the threat to Dinosaur National Monument became the consensus, and the conference, which was covered by the national news media as well as regional media from the West, led to a reenergized and cohesive campaign. Victory ultimately came on April 11, 1956, when Congress approved the overall storage project but excluded the Echo Park Dam and any others related to the project that might affect any national park or monument.

On a personal note, Sigurd Olson's keynote speech in New York meant more than he knew at the time. When he returned to Ely in late November he had several letters waiting for him. Two were from book editors, rejecting the manuscript he was shopping. George Brockway, writing for W.W. Norton on October 29, called the book "too diffuse, too self-conscious, and too sentimental." And Paul Brooks, an editor at Houghton Mifflin, wrote a rejection letter to Sigurd's agent Marie Rodell on November 23 that was difficult for both him and Sigurd, because they were friends:

Of course I'm wholly sympathetic with the philosophy expressed in [the essays]--and sometimes he expressed it very well. However, as I told him, there is nothing tougher to sell than essays collected in book form....It would have to be superbly written to have a chance, and Sig Olson's prose is not on that level....Sig is a wonderful man and I hope to see more of him. But we'd all be disappointed if we tried to publish this.

Rodell had forwarded Brooks' letter to Sigurd; however, another letter waiting for him lessed the sting. Alfred Knopf, the prestigious publisher and conservationist (he was a member of the National Park Service's advisory board) said he attended Sigurd's keynot speech at the New York conference and was greatly impressed. "I am wondering if you are not going to have a book for us one of these days?" Knopf wrote. Sigurd wrote to Rodell on November 29, enclosing Knopf's letter and asking if she was getting pessimistic about the book's chances. "If you are, I don't blame you," he wrote. "Perhaps Alfred Knopf will in a moment of weakness decide to take a gambling chance."

November 1969 (age 70)

Not much to report. Book signings, TV and radio appearances forThe Hidden Forest. The Minneapolis Star Tribune makes it a cover feature for its Picture magazine on November 9.