Sigurd's Childhood and Youth

(continued)

In 1912 the Olsons moved ninety miles north from Prentice to Ashland. Their house, shown here in a 1992 photo, was just a few blocks from Northland College, which Kenneth Olson was about to enter. Sigurd, meanwhile, began ninth grade at Ashland High School. It must have been a little intimidating for a boy who was used to country schools where children of all grades were together in one room. Also, at thirteen, he was young for his class. But there is little record of his high school years, except that he received his first recognition for writing: a five-dollar gold piece for best essay in the school's writing contest. The topic—ironically, in light of his eventual conservation career—was "The Function of the Chamber of Commerce."

Like Sister Bay, Ashland was a harbor town, but on a much larger scale, shipping millions of tons of timber and iron ore each year. Sigurd regularly saw and heard the heavy industrial traffic of the harbor; he also enjoyed the beauty of Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake, with its bold and rocky shoreline. As with Lake Michigan, every day brought a new perspective: some days the water might appear deep blue, other days blue with bands of green or violet; on dark, overcast days it would take on a milky cast, or sometimes the appearance of liquid steel. And Sigurd would have witnessed the power of Lake Superior, too. Chequamegon Bay, long and broad, could be blown into a frenzy unlike anything he had seen at Sister Bay. Downpours made roads impassable and leached the area's red soil into once-quiet creeks that became raging torrents of liquid earth, emptying into the bay until it took on the color of coffee, heavy on the cream.

Connecting to the lake near the west side of town was the Fish Creek slough, just two miles from Sigurd's house. Trumpeter swans nested there, and mallards and black ducks and blue-winged teal. The slough was probably Sigurd's favorite place near home.