Sigurd Olson is kind of a hero around here. From his work to establish the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park, helping draft the Wilderness Act of 1962, to the founding of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute and his teaching at what is now Vermilion Community College, Olson influenced the world with his writing and activism on behalf of the natural world.
But for a surprising number of young people, Olson's legacy lives on not in his written work, but in a simple act of kindness.
A Private Wilderness: The Journals of Sigurd F. Olson, edited by David Backes, is published by the University of Minnesota Press.