outdoors

OK Denny, here you go again on the "Sig" stories. My memories are of spending years trout fishing with Joe Seliga, [by snow machine and snowshoes] and listening to Joe telling stories of past great trips. Many by motor. Now days I paddle the canoe that Joe made for me, but yearn to be traveling the BWCA with my 19' Gruman, and a 91/2 HP motor. Sig made his money using outboard motors when he owned Basswood Lodge. He got "Religion" about motors after he was done on Basswood.--Eric Marleau--Ely Ten Alumni--

I appreciate what the writer feels for Sig and his changing relationship with the Great Outdoors. He was a deep thinker and eloquent writer, seeking to inspire in readers a love for Nature and its restorative properties. Much of his life was spent shagging after a dollar, trying to make a living in a number of ways, trying to support a family, yet yearning to find time for solitude. Sig was often a frustrated man because he was pulled in many directions. The kids regarded him as some sort of guru, and the locals mocked him because they bought it, hook, line, and sinker. He was a great man, but also a hypocrite, because he wanted to change the rules which applied to everyone's outdoors, how we used it, and establish a new order of what were permissible forms of recreation. Naturally, locals resented outsiders telling them how to behave, even regulating access to their lakes -- I don't blame them. A whole generation of kids 'got religion', and there is still an impact today, particularly with the lobbying efforts of the Sierra Club, Green Peace, Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund. Everyone has their own idea of what should be our ideal relationship with the earth, with many seeking to legislate it. Yet, Sig shot ducks, fished, used motor boats, profited from writing about it, used his leverage to influence others, as a guide, writer, educator, and policy maker in the board room. John Muir before him, made his living from a saw mill he helped build at the base of Yosemite Falls, exploiting water power and timber, in exchange for a job. It's always been a challenge, kind of like the act of building a trail through the wilderness, in order to gain access for hikers who appreciate the beauty of nature. But you are altering nature, and destroying a part of it by doing so. One trail leads to other trails, and eventually you risk despoiling that which was so reveared. Thanks Dennis, for remembering Sig. He will always be a hero to some, and a goat to others. I think it is important to remember why, and respect their reasons.

Great story. Hunting moose in the BWCA was one of the great experiences of my life. This spring my wife and kids will go there to try to catch the kids' first walleyes. The idea that Olson was a hypocrite is absurd. There are areas that are more intensively used, but we also need the quiet places with no motors. I enjoy hunting and fishing in the latter more than where there is the constant din of machines, but that can't always be what I do. Wilderness and roadless have some of the best hunting and fishing, and certainly the best, most challenging, and rewarding ways of doing it.

Olson was a polarizing figure. Folks in the northland were not happy with him for helping preserve the BWCA. Especially so because he enlisted outsiders in the fight. Northlanders do not like outsiders telling them what's best for them. I grew up going into the BWCA. I'm glad they preserved it. However, there needs to be a balance. Development of natural resources is what made the iron range and helped fund much for the state. Development of natural resources is possible without destruction of the preserved areas. The environmenatalists have locked up far too many developments to the detriment of the economy and our standard of living.

Sig Olson, as said above, was a HYPOCRIT. lIKE MANY LIBERAL PRESERVATIONIST, Sig Olson wanted, and pushed for things like Voyagers National Park and the control of Minnesota Northlands by the liberal organizations. Together they wanted to put rules, and in many places have gotten them passed, to make Northern Minnesota a vaction land for liberals only. The DNR has bought many acres of private land and turned the management over to these tax free Orgs., making much of Northern Mn. off limits to the average citizen. Sig Olson and his liberal friends wanted, and his friends still do want, to make a paradise with tax payers dollars, but only for those that travel there from the twin cities and other mostley large cities with values very few residents here believe in. We need common sense management and conservation of our forest, lakes, rivers and natural resources. But we do not need strict preservation like the BWCA and Voygers Park now have. Thanks to people like Sig and his friends.

Intellectual growth, developing ideas, finding truths is a sign of strength of character. Sig, of course, is not MLK but they and many other notables have a contradictory past--often at odds with the men they became. The north is a better place by many measures for Sig having been in it.