The Singing Wilderness

I really enjoy Sigurd Olson's writings. They have a downright old-style home feel. It brings you back to days of innocence and days of wonder. He tells of days growing up and experiencing nature and what it has to offer through his lifetime encounters. Incredibly, Sigurd is a highly educated ecologist with vast amounts of knowledge who can give just the right amount of details without overdoing it...it still leaves that sense of "just enjoy what nature has to offer" yet still keeping enough real world information in there. He doesn't flaunt the fact he is a leading naturalist, we just find this out through his love of nature in his writings. I have all of his books and could give practically all of them an equal praise. Grab some of them, read on and enjoy the trip.

This book is my favorite! It describes all the feelings common to those who have visited canoe country and will never forget it. Sigurd Olson's writing is so clear and descriptive, you'll feel like you're in the Boundary Waters every time you pick it up. Everyone who has visited the Boundary Waters or ever plans on doing so, not to mention all the other nature lovers out there, should read this book. I don't know how many times I've read it and it seems to get better every time.

Originally published in 1956, this classic still speaks to nature lovers today, and it deserves to share the same shelf with Thoreau, Muir, and Beston. Olson's essays convey the spirit and sense of place in what is now known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area -- Superior National Forest in Minnesota and Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. North country life is special, and Olson obviously loved living there. He writes with delight of seeing Northern Lights, portaging canoes, cross country skiing, hearing the echoes of loons calling, and witnessing the occasional mouse tobogganing off a tent roof. Though the chapters are organized by seasons and begin with Spring, it is the essence of cold and snow and winter that carries the reader through the book. Best to be read by a warm fireplace with a light snow falling outside and a mug of hot chocolate nearby.

I first spent time in the Quetico when I was fourteen with my dad. Two months before we left he gave me a book called "The Singing Wilderness". He said read the essay called "silence" and you will understand why this place is special. When I returned from the trip I continued to read it. I've read it a lot during winters and in the weeks leading up to trips into the wilderness canoe area north-west of lake Superior. Every time I endulge myself in it I'm taken back to a place, where despite having lasted through decades of change to the surrounding world, it offers a first hand history lesson. This book captures a small part of the beauty of the Quetico which means(I was told by park people there) beautiful land with trecherous waters that everyone should have the chance to experience.

I love the way That Sigurd Olson has arranged his essays in The Singing Wilderness in in the order of season. This gives one an excellent perspective of life in the North year round. Olson has a sentimental compassion for all that is natural, and for the preservation of nature in it's most natural state. I especially loved reading about Olson's grandmother in his essay Grandmother's Trout. I believe she is largely responsible for cultivating an unending love of nature in young Sigurd. Each essay is a masterpiece in words of Olson's experiances. If you read this book you will also find Ruins of The North, and Reflections on the North Country to be of interest (both by Sigurd F. Olson). Another writer that you may also enjoy, who is also from Minnesota, and shares a love of the wilderness is Gary Paulson. Read Woodsong.