#sigurd olson

Making time for a shave.

Brent Lake, Quetico Provincial Park

#ArtsyFartsyFriday

To celebrate Father’s Day—and my mom’s birthday next week!—I wanted to find something in the stacks that made me think of my parents and found a new favorite book: Wilderness by Peter and Donna Thomas. This mini artists’ book frames a Sigurd Olson quote about the wild from a Naturalist magazine article with watercolors painted while on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Bound with a leather spine, this book is bound in an accordion fold style; the library copy is number 20 of the edition of 50.

It reminds me of canoe trips into the Boundary Waters growing up, reading books around the fire—books are harder to portage in but truly a camp essential, and being in awe of the watercolors my dad can bring to life on a lakeshore.

Do you have any camping or canoe trips planned this summer? What are your favorite wilderness books?

"In wilderness people can find the silence and the solitude and the uncivilized surroundings that can connect them once again to their evolutionary heritage, and through an experience of the eternal mystery, can give them a sense of the sacredness of all creation."

The Collected Works of famed American writer and staunch enviromentalist Sigurd Olson. "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."