The Listening Point Foundation, Inc.

1999 Annual Lecture:

Sigurd F. Olson: The Man Behind the Legend

by Robert K. Olson, President
The Listening Point Foundation, Inc.

Delivered at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute Centennial Dinner
April 4, 1999, Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin

Good evening friends. I was delighted to be asked to speak to you this evening to share with you some of my memories of my father, Sigurd F. Olson. And, as I began to think about it, one of the first thoughts to come to mind were that, for a son, he was a hard act to follow. That is the trouble with outstanding people, they set a standard that others are always trying to live up to.

I mention this particularly because there is a lesson in it for everyone, especially for those who try to follow his example or, as in the case of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, try to fulfill his legacy. Many strive to see the world through Sig Olson's eyes and to follow his example as much as possible, which is both praiseworthy and natural.

But Sig always urged his students and friends and, indeed, his sons, to follow their own feelings, to do what they thought best for them and not to imitate him or anyone else. Whatever else I say to you tonight then, this, as far as I am concerned, is what is most important and why I mention it first.

The Man Behind the Legend

Nevertheless, the time has come to bring Sig Olson back to life. There are few left who knew him well. Many know him or know of him only as a wise and accomplished old man. To the younger generations, he is only a name with a fading reputation or, worse, totally unknown. Let me share with you then, some of my own thoughts and feelings about who Sig Olson was, what he was like, and why and how we should remember him.

Behind the popular legen, there was a real man who has been lost in the legend. Behind the wise old man is a younger man full of impressions and aspirations, like yourselves, seeking his way in life, trying to define himself. If we wish to revive his life and image, therefore, we must, in the words of the poet William Butler Yeats, go back to the beginning again, to the bottom of the ladder, where all dreams start.

I said he was a hard act to follow. One of the reasons is that he had star quality. In his youth he was devilishly handsome, with aquiline features, bronzed face and jet black hair. When he wore a mustache he looked like Clark Gable. He was romantic in a Papa Hemingway fashion, a hunter, fisherman, voyageur, guide, crack woodsman, and a writer but a man of action. He admired authentic men and looked the part himself in his logger's boots and trademark hat. Yet he was soft spoken, and good humored, unpretentious, and full of fun and intelligence.

Sig Olson achieved success in spite of it all. He came from humble, ordinary beginnings, the son of Swedish immigrants in Wisconsin. He took a teaching job in the remote little mining town of Ely, Minnesota and stayed there for the rest of his life. Yet he became nationally, even internationally famous. He did not go out into the world to seek his fortune. In the event, the world came to him, a trickle at first, then hundreds and thousands making the pilgrimage to his house and beloved Listening Point. He became a Life Magazine centerfold. His first book, The Singing Wilderness, hit the New York Times best seller list. He became for awhile the most admired man in the conservation world, elected to the exclusive Cosmos Club, to the Explorers Club, to the Presidency of the Wilderness Society and the National Parks Association.

Does it matter how he did it? Yes, I think it does, for he still serves as an example to young people or even those in middle age who are trying to accomplish something on their own. And it involves certain vital qualities essential to any success, qualities which he had in abundance but have been overlooked in the popular appreciation of his writings and philosophy.

I have already mentioned the importance of being oneself. On that he never compromised, no matter what the cost. Two other vital qualities were his capacity for hard work and his sense of public service.

Sig Olson was one of the hardest working people I have ever known in my own fairly long life. It did not matter whether he was building a stone wall or working at his desk, he threw himself into it without let or hindrance. He despised loafers and layabouts. With Sig, it was lead, follow, or get out of the way. He was extraordinarily well organized and businesslike. When he started a job, he finished it. You could count on Sig Olson to do his share, and on time. This may not be the Sig Olson people still love and revere but it was certainly an integral part of the man and one of the keys to his success.

It is strange not to be recognized but public service was one of the central qualities of his life. He was a teacher, scout leader, college Dean, and environmental leader. He felt a profound duty to bring his vision to the attention of others and translate it into law and practice. He has been accused and criticized for being an elitist environmentalist out of touch with his own community. In fact, his central motive has been to preserve resources and beautiful places so that they will not be set aside for private interests but would be available to the public. If there is any failure in his life, it is his failure to get this idea across to the general public. I personally believe that Sig's life of public service is the most inspiring of his many admirable qualities and one which should serve as a model and example to coming generations.

I do not wish to dwell on his writing because that is already well enough known and beautifully treated in David Backes' biography A Wilderness Within. However, we have to recognize that without his books and articles, he would, no doubt, be forgotten along with the issues to which he devoted many years of public life. So his writing was a major factore in his eventual success. But it was not just beautiful writing; there is lots of that. The reason people loved his books was, to quote from many letters, because "you put my own feelings and thoughts into words." It was a gift, a talent denied to most of us, which came to him naturally and easily. Yet he was a disciplined and exacting craftsman who wrote draft after draft before he was satisfied with the result. And he was driven to fill the empty page. Many people can write and write well, but some are driven people who cannot not write; he was one of those. The result, once he broke into print, was a torrent of books and articles, national and international recognition.

But perhaps none of this matters as much to us as our memories of the person himself, of the Dean, of Dad, of Sig, of Papa, of the Mr. Olson we remember with love and affection. He was, as I have mentioned, a charismatic and attractive person, but also a warm and loyal friend. He was soft spoken and courteous. He was clean of speech, thought, dress and action, kind and forgiving, and generous to a fault. He loved the little things of life and of the world, Linnea, snow flakes, birds, wild sounds, and smells, and the sheer feel of things like a handfull of loam. To him, they were beautiful, and beauty, to him, was divine.

One of the best things I remember about him was that he was always positive no matter how badly provoked. He worked for, not against things. I never heard him speak ill of another person, never. He did not complain or gossip about others but went on about his own business whether digging a garden or writing a book. How many of us can say that?

At the same time, future generations should know that, like his generation, he was not as open, free, and liberal as they. Sig was friendly but also remote to most, not on a first-name basis with many people, and not easily available to little boys. Where we are filled with doubt about the world and ourselves, he was morally certain. He believed in himself and his ideals so had no reservations about moral certainties and absolute truths. As a result, his beliefs were fixed, rigid and not subject to compromise. It is wrong to generalize, but there was in Sigurd Olson something of the Old Testament evangelist when it came to the wilderness and what it means.

The most important and enduring part of Sigurd Olson was his love of the wilderness, which has become synonymous with the man and his name. It is so important that in the act of describing the man's personality and other aspects of his life, ironically, we lose sight of the man himself. He has been called "Mr. Wilderness." He, himself, told me just a year before he died that he wanted to be remembered as the "Champion of the Wilderness." Knowing how time erodes the details of life, we can be confident in saying that if Sigurd Olson is remembered for a thousand years, it will be as the defender and definer of the wilderness or, as one writer wished to put it, as the "Evangelist of the Wilderness."

The Listening Point Idea

Let us then speak of the Listening Point. Listening Point, that "bare glaciated spit of rock in the Quetico-Superior country." That place, which to Sig was the epitome of the north country and of "all places of the north that I had known and loved."

The story of Listening Point is best told in the book of that name that he wrote about it, what he was looking for, how he found it, and what it meant to him. He tells how the development of the Point, cutting a road and trails, installing a cabin, an outhouse, and a sauna conflicted with his instinct to leave it as he found it. Resolving the dilemma became a philosophical conflict that murmurs through the pages that follow.

From this experience emerges the heart and soul of the Point and the book, what I would call the "Listening Point Idea." Listening Point is often thought of as the place where Sig came to write, to think, to get away from the noise and stress of life. And it was that. But it was much more. In his own words, "From this one place I would explore the entire north and all life including my own." In other words, Listening Point was not an escape but a portal into a larger life. Let me quote directly:

Listening Point is dedicated to recapturing this almost forgotten sense of wonder and learning from rocks and trees and all the life that is found there, truths that can encompass all. Through a vein of rose quartz at its tip can be read the geological history of the planet, from an old pine stump the ecological succession of the plant kingdom, from an Indian legend the story of the dreams of all mankind.

The last chapter of Listening Point is not a summary or rehash of his poetic experiences with nature but is entitled "Far Horizons" in which he speaks of the "blue frontiers" and the "eternal striving for understanding the universe."

Listening Point is, above all, a place of quiet. This is the central idea of the experience. Sig's message to mankind was this, that "only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still can things be seen and heard." The plea for and celebration of silence resonates throughout his many works. And it is this that Listening Point is all about. Those who know about and love Listening Point, and they are legion, all agree on one thing, nothing must ever impair the silence and serenity of Listening Point, no matter what. To lose that is to lose the very thing we so wish to preserve.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he brings the reader into the center of the picture with the exciting idea that "Everyone has a listening-point somewhere...some place of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe." Read the dedication.

In order to preserve Listening Point and to carry on his legacy, the family of Sigurd and Elizabeth Olson set up the Listening Point Foundation in 1998 to which they have donated the property. Listening Point, therefore, is now the property of a nonprofit foundation governed by a Board of Directors. While it is currently based at the home of son and daughter-in-law Robert and Yvonne Olson at Hayward, Wisconsin, it is planned to establish a permanent office at Ely as soon as possible.

L'Envoi

Finally, I would like to share with you a little story about Sig's last day. The last thing he wrote was an essay entitled "Caribou Creek." You all know how he died, snowhsoeing back of the house on a cold January afternoon. Well, that trail was the one around the Caribou Creek bog he had written about. If you want to read it, it was published after his death in Audubon, March 1982/Volume 84, Number 2, pp. 42-43.

A few years later, Caribou Creek valley was utterly destroyed when the Ely radio station dredged it out to put up a four-hundred foot TV transmission tower. Surveying the damages, I tried to follow what would have been the old trail as it skirted the former bog. But it was all gone, all gone except for the last 50 feet or so. This was where the trail came out on the road and where he had collapsed and died. Looking it over, I thought to myself, "These were his last steps."

Thank you again and goodnight.