April 1956 (age 57)

On April 16th, twelve days after Sigurd's 57th birthday, The Singing Wilderness was published. The first major review was published on April 15th in Saturday Review, and established the tone for many others. The prominent literary critic Bruch Hutchison wrote:

A day with such a man in the woods must be an education. Even with the abbreviated compass of a book written rather like a casual yarn around the evening campfire, he manages to mix an extraordinary amount of information with a picture of the wilderness whole. For to him it is a whole thing, an organic body of which all life, from the lichen to the man, is interdependent, logical, and in timeless rhythm.

The Singing Wilderness also cemented the Wilderness Society's decision to add Sigurd to its governing council. Many conservation leaders received advance copies of the book, and a number of them read it right away. "He has the words and feelings of a poet and deep understanding," council member George Marshall wrote to fellow councillor Charley Woodbury on April 13th. "I am more enthusiastic about him than ever." Anne Broome, the wife of council member Harvey Broome, also lobbied for Sigurd in a letter to Woodbury on April 1st:

May I, as a member of the Society in my own name (not as the wife of a councillor), express an unsolicited opinion to you, as a like member (and not as chairman of the Nominating Committee) regarding Sig as a candidate for the Council. I know him from his writings and through conversation. You of course have worked with him more closely. Sig, like Olaus and Harvey, has a long range perspective on wilderness, with a philosophical approach. I feel that our Society needs another Councillor who thinks like Sig, as well as Councillors in other categories (scientific, business men, lawyers). And, as I wrote George, Sig knew Bob M. personally. The time will come ultimately when no one on the Council will have been personally acquainted with Bob.

Sigurd officially joined the council during its annual meeting in August.

This also was the month in which Sigurd, in his role as president of the National Parks Association, wrote to Senator Hubert Humphrey, marking his first official endorsement of the proposed bill to establish a national wilderness preservation system. To see the letter, click here.

April 1971 (age 72)

At a public hearing in Fort Frances, Ontario, Sigurd testified against logging in Quetico Provincal Park. The Toronto Globe and Mail said he was "by far the most fluent spokesman for the conservationists." On April 19-21, he and Elizabeth attended a meeting of the National Park Service's advisory board in Washington, D.C.--his first since his heart attack in 1968.

Meanwhile, at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., acting president Harriet Dexter, at her first meeting with the board of trustees, brought up her dream of having an environmental program started up and asking Sigurd to lend his name to it. The initial reaction of the trustees seems to have been one of cautious enthusiasm. Malcolm McLean came aboard as Northland's new president in August 1971; on January 3, 1972, he broached the idea with Sigurd. Sigurd was hesitant about having an institute named for him, but Dexter and McLean convinced him to give his okay.