October 1955 (age 56)

Nothing to report.

October 1970 (age 71)

In 1970, Quetico Provincial Park was embroiled in a controversy over logging within its boundaries. Ontario conservationists arranged what they called an "international summit" at the edge of the park. About a hundred people attended the October 3 event: Canadian and American conservationists, Ontario government officials, logging industry representatives, and, most important of all, journalists from major Canadian newspapers, wire services and television networks. Sigurd Olson was the keynote speaker.

He was the perfect choice, even though anti-American sentiment was running strong in Canada at the time. Sigurd had made so many public relations trips to Ontario in the 1950s and 1960s to talk about wilderness canoeing and his expeditions with the Voyageurs, and his book The Lonely Land was so popular in Canada, that he was as revered among Canadian environmentalists as he was among their American counterparts. "The wilderness appreciation and support in this part of Canada today owes much to the work done by Sig during his frequent trips, mainly here to Toronto, during the 1950s and 1960s," according to Fred Bodsworth, one of Canada's best-known nature writers.

An early winter storm struck the day of the summit, which made travel difficult but added to the effect of Sigurd's speech. Facing a fierce snowstorm on a bridge that spanned a historic fur trade route, and talking about what he called the global spiritual significance of the Quetico, the elderly conservationist with the shaking head galvanized many of his listeners. The resulting media coverage was decidedly pro-wilderness. Sigurd Olson's speech was the turning point of the campaign, which led to a ban on logging and the reclassification of the Quetico as a primitive park.