July 1955 (age 56)

From July 23-August 13, Sigurd was canoeing 500 miles of the Churchill River in Saskatchewan with the Voyageurs. He would later recount the trip in his 1961 book The Lonely Land. To read Voyageur Denis Coolican's trip diary, complete with links to maps and photos, click here.

July 1970 (age 71)

Quetico-Superior issues took up a fair amount of Sigurd's time this month. Quetico Provincial Park was working on a ban of motorboats, which Sigurd was happy to see, but whether or not to allow logging was a major issue in Ontario. Meanwhile, on the U.S. side of the Quetico-Superior, there was a serious but brief threat to open the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to mining. Writing in Living Wilderness magazine in July 1970, Sigurd expressed exasperation: "Must we repeat over and over the ghastly mistakes of the past, desecrating the landscape, destroying its wildlife, poisoning its clear waters, and leaving scars that will take thousands of years to heal?"