December 9, 1930

This month, Sigurd starts doing the field research for his eventual master's thesis on the timber wolf. In the fall of 1931 he will start his master's program at the University of Illinois. In many of his journal entries he writes that science bores him, yet now he is close to deciding to get his master's degree. A key part of the attraction, as this journal entry shows, is that it could lead to a job that will keep him outdoors much of the time. What he really wants to do is write, but he has gotten little encouragement and keeps trying to think of what he can do with his life that will make him happy and give him a sense of accomplishment.

What a morning, wind out of the west soft and balmy as a morning in September or Oct with just enough of freshness to make one feel like getting out and wallowing in it just for the sheer joy of living. I think of the life of a writer, on a morning like this he could go out for a walk, go where he pleased and for how long he pleases, and the come back brim full of ideas and wade into them for six or seven hours or as long as he wished.

I think and think of my future. If I go ahead and get more biological training there will be a number of opportunities for me that if I do not go I will be out of reach of. There is the survey [Biological Survey, forerunner of Fish and Wildlife Service], there is Kings and Austens idea of a resident biologist for the Sup. Nat. [Superior National Forest] That last would be about what I would want but I must not plan on it because there is really small hope of its ever going through. Then there is the possibility of being sent on investigative work from here to Alaska for the Survey, but what will that do to my home and family. It might be worth while doing it for a time because later on that sort of experience is good to cash in on. Then there is always teaching to fall back upon, the old standby and no so bad at that. If I come back here after getting my masters I will outline my doctors and get the bulk of it out of the way before I go back so that I could spend the bulk of my time on study.

There is really nothing to worry about one way or the other. If I write and the [outfitting] business comes along to give me my winters free it will be wonderful. If I go into the Survey or any similar line there is also a good future and I can always come back to writing as I can to teaching. Those two are the last resorts. In the meantime the thing to do is to live happily, getting as much out of life as possible and not permitting the ogres of doubt and misery camp too much on your trail. It will all come out all right in the end of that I am sure. Just so that I can get out doors once in while for a good breath of air, I can put up with almost anything.

In a way I am really getting anxious to get back to school just to dispel the feeling of doubt which continually assails me. At least the year will do no harm outside of laying our supply of funds rather low and it will increase me chances for the future if I ever decide to go ahead in Biology. For fifteen years I have been undecided the fifteen most formative years of my life. Only one thing have I found out about myself and that is that my love for the woods will never die. There is one sustained interest that I know now will never be changed. My greatest joy comes from a life in the open and my greatest misery comes from being cooped up for long periods in town. Knowing that should bive me my premise. I should know that any work that keeps me out of doors a relatively continuous period will keep me happy, no matter what the work is. This too I have found, that hunting and fishing isn't everything but just getting out of doors the main thing. Whether or not I have a rod in my hands any more means nothing, or whether or not I have a gun. The big happiness comes from merely being out of doors. It doesn't make much difference what I am doing just so I am busy, the greatest happiness is given me however by studying wild life. Wild life puts me in touch with all the beauties of nature. I am working with an artistic background and the very knowledge that I am dealing with what I love gives me satisfaction and pleasure. A muskrat becomes a thing of beauty because he lives at the mouth of a creek grown with cattails and bulrushes backed with spruce, the scene that always gives me the most. A grouse is synonymous with poplar woods in the fall, a duck with lake and marsh and wild rice, a deer with snow and thousands of hunting trips, wolves with yellow moons, and howling in the fall and winter, small crustacea with the environment of lakes and marshes and streams. There is no form of life that does not give me some degree of pleasure because of the associations it brings. To go out in the woods and spend a busy day looking up the habits of some animal and keeping notes on what you have found is to be about as happy as one has a right to be. Of course there must be a certain amount of sedentary work to make one's findings available to the rest of the world but that must not be begrudged because it is the price one has to pay for the privilege of doing the other. As King said it is a shame to take pay for doing anything one likes to do but wonderful if one is able to do it. Most men take pay for doing something absolutely distasteful to them and keep on doing it all their lives, the only pleasure being their short and miserable vacations when they try to regain in two short weeks what they have missed in fifty. They lead truly miserable lives. I suppose eventually I will teach but for the best part of my life I want to be in the woods and there only. Despair grips me now when I think how small my chances are for that unless I cut loose and write. Only there is any semblance of freedom. Any other job means being tied down --- but and this is a long thought - I cannot and will never be able to picture characters [write fiction involving people]. There is not sympathy there.

Women I do not know -

Men either....