February 19, 1934

Sigurd is having some writing sucesses and happiness, but he knows that by March he will have to put his extra time into reservations and other preparations for the summer canoe outfitting season, and so his writing time is nearly at end end until fall.

I have just sent in my canoe trip outlines to Robert Page Lincoln so that much is off my chest. I have my doubts about Outdoor Life taking "Let's Go Exploring" for the simple reason that I think I pounded it off in too much of a hurry and perhaps the same is through about "Crusing in the Arrowhead."[Note: Outdoors Magazine would publish "Cruising in the Arrowhead" in May, but it would take three more years before "Let's Go Exploring" would find a home in Field and Stream.] Nevertheless, the fact remains that I got that much material out of the way, it is done and through with. What seemed an insurmountable job is through and I did it in the time specified.

I am going to get off an article for the Minnesota Conservationist on wolves sometime before spring. [Note: Minnesota Conservationist would publish "A New Policy Needed for the Superior" in May.] The recent renewed agitation for trapping leaves me cold and think it is about time to get something off for the conservationists to think about.

Yesterday was a lovely peaceful day. The thought occurred to me. Should I ever lose my family life, then such an afternoon as I had yesterday will haunt me. The bright sunshine out of doors, Elizabeth and the boys at home, no place to go, nothing to do but read and rest. For once I was supremely happy and contented. Took a little jaunt on my snowshoes after lunch and worked off any excess energy, then home to work and preparing supper, then reading and finally to bed. Very peaceful and happy.

By the looks of things, next summer should be pretty good business for the outfitting game. If by some chance I should make a thousand clear, think what a sense of relief it will give me. By spring I will have $200.00 coming from the Co. plus $100 for my stories will make it $300.00. That should if we are careful take care of us during the summer. Then by fall with the $500 I will take in salary and a possible dividend will give me between $1000 and $1500 to play with. Perhaps we will put it into a house, perhaps we will just sink it in as so much savings. Perhaps I will quit my teaching and spend the winter writing. I could do it on that with very little trouble. But before I quit, I should build myself a house so that I will have a place to live no matter what happens to my other sources of income. [Note: The Olsons would buy and move into a new home in August. A two-story cream-colored frame house on top of a hill just south of Ely, it was modest but pleasant, and its location at the edge of the country, next to wide-open fields and a wooded ravine, foretold innumerable family cross-country skiing trips in the years ahead. The home on Greenvalley Road (really a dead-end alley) would be Sigurd and Elizabeth's last. (Eventually, their property and the surrounding area would be incorporated into Ely, and their address would become 106 East Wilson Street.)]

As spring approaches with the multifarious businesses of getting ready for the coming season, I find myself more and more weaned away from my dreams. So it is at the end of every winter. Coming activity absorbs my interests and makes me doubt if I ever had thought for dreaming and writing.