[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 19171]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 19171]]

                        TRIBUTE TO SIGURD OLSON

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute one 
of our nation's most beloved nature writers and dedicated wilderness conservationists, Mr. Sigurd Olson. As an architect of the federal government's protection of wilderness areas, as well as a poetic
voice that captured the importance of these pristine sites, Mr. Olson
left us and our children a legacy of natural sanctuaries and an ethic
by which to better appreciate them.
  Mr. President, 1999 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of 
Sigurd Olson. Over the July recess, I had the opportunity to travel to 
Northern Minnesota to commemorate and celebrate Sigurd Olson's life and 
work. I think it is fitting that the Senate take this opportunity to 
honor the life of Mr. Olson, who sadly passed away 17 years ago, and to 
renew our dedication to continue his legacy of wilderness preservation.
  Born in Chicago in 1899, Sigurd Olson and his family soon moved to 
the beautiful Door County Peninsula of Wisconsin. It was there that he 
formed his life-long attachment to nature and to outdoor recreation. 
Half a century later, he described what he experienced as a boy along 
the coast of Green Bay:

       A school of perch darted in and out of the rocks. They were 
     green and gold and black, and I was fascinated by their 
     beauty. Seagulls wheeled and cried above me. Waves crashed 
     against the pier. I was alone in a wild and lovely place, 
     part of the dark forest through which I had come, and of all 
     the wild sounds and colors and feelings of the place I had 
     found. That day I entered into a life of indescribable beauty 
     and delight. There I believe I heard the singing wilderness 
     for the first time.

  A few years after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 
Madison, Olson moved to northeastern Minnesota. He traveled and guided 
for many years in the surrounding millions of acres of lakeland 
wilderness--what eventually became the Boundary Waters Canoe Area 
Wilderness--and he grew convinced that wilderness provided the 
spiritual experiences vital to modern society. It was this conviction 
that formed the basis of both his conservation and his writing careers. 
As he said at a Sierra Club conference in 1965:

       I have discovered in a lifetime of traveling in primitive 
     regions, a lifetime of seeing people living in the wilderness 
     and using it, that there is a hard core of wilderness need in 
     everyone, a core that makes its spiritual values a basic 
     human necessity. There is no hiding it. . . . Unless we can 
     preserve places where the endless spiritual needs of man can 
     be fulfilled and nourished, we will destroy our culture and 
     ourselves.

   Olson became an active conservationist in the 1920's, fighting to 
keep roads, dams and airplanes out of his ``special place'' in 
northeastern Minnesota. He went on to serve as the president of both 
the National Parks Association and the Wilderness Society. Yet, perhaps 
his greatest contribution to conservation came during his tenure as an 
advisor to Secretary of the Interior from 1959 to the early 1970's, 
when he helped draft the Wilderness Act, which became law in 1964 and 
established the U.S. wilderness preservation system that still exists 
today.
  While I never knew Sigurd Olson, those who worked with ``Sig,'' as he 
was called, were infected by his unwavering commitment to the Boundary 
Waters and his desire to help people truly understand the meaning and 
legacy of wilderness.
  Central to Olson's agenda was his perseverance as public advocate for 
the Boundary Waters, in spite of the sometimes quite open hostility 
that he faced in taking that stand. Twenty-two years ago on July 8, 
1977, a public field hearing was held at Ely High School on Congressman 
Fraser's bill that became the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act 
of 1978. Sigurd Olson, then 77 years old, stepped forward to testify in 
the midst of hisses, catcalls and boos from the roughly thousand-person 
crowd that packed the hearing. Despite the fact that an effigy in his 
likeness was hanging outside the school, he testified, saying in part:

       Some places should be preserved from development and 
     exploitation for they satisfy a human need for solace, 
     belonging, and perspective. In the end we turn to nature in a 
     frenzied chaotic world to find silence--oneness--wholeness--
     spiritual release.

  I am inspired by Sigurd Olson's actions in my own work, as I have 
been inspired by my predecessor in the United States Senate Gaylord 
Nelson. I also share Olson's great respect for America's public lands 
and for the Boundary Waters.
  Mr. President, as I mentioned, I recently visited the Boundary Waters 
and spent a day canoeing in the pristine area that Olson loved so 
dearly on the Hegman Lake chain. His words, from his first book, The 
Singing Wilderness, best describe the experience:

       The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence 
     is part of it and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, 
     and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which 
     it floats, the sky, the water, the shores. . . . There is 
     magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a 
     magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. 
     The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a 
     freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, 
     the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life 
     with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part 
     of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known.

  In addition to canoeing the Hegman Lakes, I also had an opportunity 
to visit Listening Point on Burntside Lake with Sigurd Olson's son, Bob 
Olson, and Bob's wife, Vonnie Olson. Many people have a special place 
where they go to experience nature. Perhaps it is a park, or a 
campsite, or a favorite hiking trail. For Sigurd Olson, it was a cabin 
on a tree-covered glaciated point of rock. He called it his ``Listening 
Point,'' and it is at the center of his book of the same name.
  In his book, Sigurd Olson talks about that place on Burntside Lake 
from his first night sleeping there under the stars to the eventual 
building of his cabin:
       ``From this one place I would explore the entire north and 
     all life, including my own,'' he writes. ``For me, it would 
     be a listening-post from which I might even hear the music of 
     the spheres.''

  From his cabin, Olson also experienced the wonder and danger of 
significant storms in the Boundary Waters, an experience nearly 
identical to my own. Over the Fourth of July weekend this year, shortly 
before I arrived, serious winds hit the Boundary Waters, downing trees 
in a quarter of the wilderness area.
  I was comforted to learn, as I arrived at Listening Point to see Bob 
Olson clearing trees from the driveway, that Listening Point has 
weathered significant storms before. Sigurd Olson writes of another 
storm, and its aftermath in Of Time and Place:

       As we approached Listening Point we could see the damage, 
     trees down and twisted, blocking the road to the cabin. We 
     chopped and hacked our way through to the turnaround and 
     found the trail to the cabin was a crisscross of broken 
     treetops, a jackstraw puzzle of tangled debris. It was 
     unbelievable; I looked at the trees, remembering how over the 
     years we had treasured each one of them. . . .
  Olson continues:

       I sometimes wonder about the meaning of such things as this 
     tornado--why it happened, why it leapfrogged over some areas 
     and hit others. We paddled to the islands beyond Listening 
     Point and saw where many trees had been blown over, all old 
     landmarks along the shore. They would lie there for many 
     years until they, too, would sink into the soil and 
     disappear.

  Mr. President, I have been a defender of the Boundary Waters, and my 
constituents adore this area.
  I have also joined in the fight to protect the public lands of 
Southern Utah, and have sponsored legislation to have the lands of 
wilderness potential in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore 
identified. All my efforts are linked to unfinished business that 
Sigurd Olson began in the Boundary Waters and to his commitment to 
designating and protecting our country's special wild places.
  In addition to conveying my own admiration for Sigurd Olson, I rise 
today to share the reflections of my own home state. Wisconsinites have 
a special fondness for Sigurd Olson for several reasons. Olson, who 
began his environmental education as a kid from Northern Wisconsin who 
loved the outdoors, turned out to be a serious conservationist whose 
name is among the greatest conservationists of the Twentieth Century. 
With his special wilderness writing, Olson was a reformer who didn't 
come across as self-important.
  Second, Wisconsinites truly appreciate an accomplished outdoor 
enthusiast turned advocate. That's a rarity
in politics, especially these days. Olson will be long remembered for 
his character and fundamental decency in defense of the wilderness he 
loved. On behalf of myself and the citizens of my state, as well as all 
Americans, I wish Sigurd Olson a very happy birthday. We are a greater 
country for his dedication.

                          ____________________