Apr 15, 2019
Author, environmentalist and advocate,Β Sig Olson at a wilderness camping site, probably in the Quetico area.
Minnesota, 1940β²s
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Author, environmentalist and advocate,Β Sig Olson at a wilderness camping site, probably in the Quetico area.
Minnesota, 1940β²s
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The singing wilderness has to do with the calling of the loons, northern lights, and the great silences of a land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life that is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs...
I have discovered thatΒ I am not alone in my listening; that almost everyone is listening for something, that the search for places where the singing may be heard goes on everywhere. It seems to be part of the hunger that all of us have for a time when we were closer to lakes and rivers, to mountains and meadows and forests, than we are today. Because of our almost forgotten past there is a restlessness within us, an impatience with things as they are, which modern life with its comforts and distractions does not seem to satisfy. We sense intuitively that there must be something more, search for panaceas we hope will give us a sense of reality, fill our days and nights with such activity and our minds with such busyness that there is little time to think. When the pace stops we are often lost, and we plunge once more into the maelstrom hoping that if we move fast enough, somehow we may fill the void within us. We may not know exactly what it is we are listening for, but we hunt as instinctively for opportunities and places to listen as sick animals look for healing herbs.
-Sigurd F Olson,
The Singing Wilderness, 1956
[Sig Olson lived and wrote in Ely, MN and had a cabin at Listening Point on Burntside Lake just outside of town. His books of essays about the wilderness in that area attracted national attention to what would become the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. That second paragraph above summarizes why we built a cabin on the edge of the BWCAW and how the wilderness feels soothing when life at βhomeβ might not.]
Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons. It is what we leave behind that is important. I think the matter of simplicity goes further than just food, equipment, and unnecessary gadgets; it goes into the matter of thoughts and objectives as well. When in the wilds, we must not carry our problems with us or the joy is lost.
Sig Olson