January 1957 (age 57)

In mid-January, Sigurd left Ely for Washington, D.C., where he would stay until mid-April, with Sigurd working on various conservation issues. (He did this every winter for a number of years. Usually, Elizabeth came along, too, but this year she was helping her sister recover from major back surgery.) It was work that was fulfilling, but his leadership role, especially as President of the National Parks Association, put him in a position he hated: having to criticize people working under him. On January 30, he wrote a memo to Devereux Butcher, editor of National Parks Magazine (published by the NPA), criticizing an article he wrote for the current issue. Butcher had sarcastically attacked the newly built Jackson Hole Lodge in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, and Sigurd objected:

The cover is beautiful one of the best so far but I am frankly concerned about what you said regarding Jackson Hole Lodge....True, I read the proof and thought you were entitled as an individual to your reactions regarding the new lodge but when you used your comments under the photographs of the building, I feel you went too far. "Would this Alcatraz win first prize as the ugliest building in the park system" is language that makes the NPA lose dignity and become vindictive and abusive. The building is there and nothing can be done about it. It would have been enough to publish the photos without the slurring captions. In this attack Dev you must have lost sight of the tremendous service the Rockefellers have done, that without their money and influence, there would not have been a Grand Teton Nat. Park including Jackson Hole and the Jackson Lake region. The Great Smokies, Yosemit, not to mention the Virgin Islands would have suffered and there are many others as well. The Rockefeller family deserves a tribute for all that they have accomplished and it has been my idea that to counteract the implication in the recent magazine such an article should be written.

The winters in Washington also made it harder for Sigurd to get any writing done. He had a heavy workload, and frequently had to travel from Washington to other places. In January 1957 he was well along in his manuscript that would become Listening Point, but wondered how he would finish it. Before he left Ely he wrote to Francis Lee Jaques, his illustrator and friend, "I'll carry my chapters with me as usual, but it is hard to write on planes and when other matters are pressing. Not until I get back here do ideas really seem to take shape." Later, in Washington, he wrote to Elizabeth that he had found some time to write, and now had 17 chapters done, but he was concerned about trying to follow up on the success of The Singing Wilderness:

I had intended to stop with 15 but wanted to get over the dead spot I seemed to be in and demonstrate again that I could summon my thoughts and ideas together. The most horrible thought is that I am through and can do no more and that comes often. Then I must convince myself all over again that the well has not run dry. Silly isn't it but that's the way I am.

January1972 (age 72)

Nothing to report.