Courtship, Wedding and Honeymoon

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The wedding took place at the Uhrenholdt farm on August 8, 1921. Sigurd wore a dark three-piece suit and a corsage on his lapel, Elizabeth a calf-length white gown. Sigurd's father, L.J. Olson, performed the ceremony in the Uhrenholdt's living room, which had windows overlooking the farm. Elizabeth would remember being distracted by the family's herd of cows walking back and forth in the distance. In the photo above, Elizabeth's parents, Soren and Kristine Uhrenholdt, are to her left, and Sigurd's parents, L.J. and Ida May Olson, are to his right.

Two months before the wedding, Sigurd had taken his first canoe trip into what is now the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. He loved it so much he decided that he and Elizabeth should honeymoon there--and Elizabeth agreed with the plan. They didn't tell their parents, however, until the day of the wedding. Elizabeth's parents were horrified and tried to convince them to go to one of the nearby resorts instead. Elizabeth had never been on a canoe trip, and Sigurd had planned a three-week voyage. But Soren and Kristine could not change the newlyweds' minds. After spending several days in Nashwauk, Minn., where Sigurd was teaching high school, they took a train to Winton, at the edge of the wilderness. They bought their supplies from J.C. Russell's outfitting company, and Elizabeth dashed off a letter to her parents: "I mustn't write much, Sig is in a hurry to start so we can make camp tonight....Remember I love you even though you don't hear for three weeks." Kristine Uhrenholdt wrote to another daughter, Johanne, "I am a bit anxious about how it will go for Elizabeth to sleep outside in a tent these cold nights."