November 1956 (age 57)
On Nov. 11th, as part of a longer letter responding to the Wilderness Society's Olaus Murie about problems facing the National Park Service, Sigurd wrote:
Last week on a tour through Canada I spoke at Toronto at the Annual Banquet of the Federation of Anglers and Hunters of Ontario. I did not discuss conservation as such, no problems, no technical snarls, talked simply of the intangible values of the out of doors. I could see the audience was hungry for exactly that approach. Men are no longer afraid to accept what is close to their hearts. There was a time when they might have been shy, but that time is over. The world has been through too much to have to gloss over deeper feelings and emotions. What is happening now makes it even more important to keep the flame alive, give people something to hold to, something to fight for that is bigger than politics, bigger than the problems the world is constantly facing, something in the way of a philosophical concept that lies at the root of any happiness the race can find.
November 1971 (age 72)
A
columnist for American Forests magazine had been censored by
the American Forestry Association and then fired as part of a
long-running disagreement over forest issues. Several board members of
the Wilderness Society wanted to publish 12,000 words of
correspondence on the controversy that they had received, apparently
from the columnist. Sigurd Olson, president of the Wilderness Society,
disagreed, jotting in his notes for a meeting:
Presumptuous for 1 org to pillory another...shoe on other foot...will W Soc. Prestige be enhanced or lessened ?...Is this a Vindictive Move?
