Sigurd F. Olson was for more than thirty years a wilderness guide in the Quetico-Superior country, and no one knew with the same intimacy the mysteries of the lakes and forests of that magnificent primitive area. To the many out-of-doorsmen who canoed and portaged with him through this wilderness, he was known honorifically as the Bourgeois -- as the voyageurs of old called their trusted leaders through this same region.

Mr. Olson was born in Chicago in 1899, and educated at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Illinois. For several years he taught biology at Ely Junior College and later served as Dean. He was President of the National Parks Association, a member of its Board of Trustees, and was for years active in organizations devoted to conservation problems.

Mr. Olson was a frequent contributor to magazines concerned with the outdoors, and is the author of several books including Listening Point, The Lonely Land, Runes of the North, Reflection from the North Country, and Of Time and Place. Until his death in 1982, he made his home with his wife, Elizabeth, in Ely, Minnesota, gateway to his beloved Quetico-Superior country.

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