November 14, 1933

In the fall of 1933, Aldo Leopold, a new professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, wanted Sigurd Olson to become his first doctoral student. The possibility put Sigurd into a real quandary, as the journal entry below shows, along with others from this time period. To put this journal entry into context, look at the correspondence between the two.

Yesterday I received a letter from Aldo Leopold asking me if I would accept a sort of fellowship for a study of deer in Wisconsin. How much would I need, perhaps $3000 a year, I suppose an exhorbitant sum. Do I want to do that sort of thing again, and tie up another three years of my life, hunting the unattainable. I am now 35 and as I said to Elizabeth this morning, this will be a final decision. Failure to take advantage of this and I will be on the black list forever. Aldo Leopold is one of the big men, in fact perhaps the biggest man in game conservation and research today. To turn him down would forever damn me in his eyes and in the eyes of all those who are interested in game. I am 35 now, in another three years, I shall be 38 close to forty. Jumping back and forth between Wis. and Hayward perhaps would mean that we could not have much of a home. It would mean that I would have to give up what I most want, peace and quiet, a chance to dream and write.

I decided yesterday that I was through with self analysis and that from now on, I was going to write steadily. I derived some comfort from that as for four years all of my rambling has really been an effort on my part to find out if I actually could or wanted to write. Unless I am entirely blind there is now no question of that. Then the thing to do is to forget about research, stick here to my job and the Border Lakes [ Outfitting Co.] and spend what time I can writing. I know now that unless I make some definite effort, I will be continually miserable. Knowing that is a very valuable thing to my peace of mind. Doing that I can be reasonably happy. Another 15 years and both Lif and I will be fifty. If I have kept on with my writing, by then I should have gotten somewhere. Perhaps then I will have a camp of my own.

However, if I take up Leopold's proposition, in three years I will be through, perhaps, with my degree. I may get a position with some university or with some state dept as a game expert. It is hard to tell where I will be or what will happen. True, this is my big opportunity and this time if I refuse, I am through FOREVER. If this is what I want to do with my life, then here is my big chance. Perhaps in the end it will mean travel and fame and a chance to do a tremendous amount of good. This field is opening up if a man has ambitions along that line, here is an opportunity.

It will mean of course that our home life is to be forgotten for a long time and that I must forget my dreams and my writing. Both choices have possibilities. Which will make me happier. Lib hesitates to advise me because as she says she wants me to do whatever will make me happy. She is unselfish enough to feel that anything will be all right if I am satisfied. I suppose what I want to do more than anything is to write. Then the thing to do is to spend the rest of this winter convincing yourself that you can and will write. If you can do something worthwhile then all right go ahead. This is your last chance, and I feel that next spring something is going to pop. Will I be ready to make my final decision.