Of Time and Place

1998
Author:

Sigurd F Olson
Illustrations by Les C. Kouba

Olson’s final work, available in paperback for the first time.

Of Time and Place is a legacy from one of the best-loved nature writers of our time. In this, his last book completed just before his death, Sigurd F. Olson guides readers through his wide-ranging memories of a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of the wilderness. Like his other best-selling books, Of Time and Place is filled with beauty, adventure, and wonder.

Olson reflects on a life spent intimately with nature, which has meant to him ‘a lifetime of searching for meaning.’ It is a serene celebration of a ‘golden thread’ that runs through his life.

Wall Street Journal

Of Time and Place is a legacy from one of the best-loved nature writers of our time. In this, his last book completed just before his death, Sigurd F. Olson guides readers through his wide-ranging memories of a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of the wilderness. Like his other best-selling books, Of Time and Place is filled with beauty, adventure, and wonder.

Olson recalls his many friendships of trail and woods and portage, his favorite campsites, the stories behind the artifacts and mementos hanging in his cabin at Listening Point. Whether he is remembering canoe trips with his friends, admiring the playful grace of the otter, or pondering the Earth’s great cycles of climatic change, these moving and evocative essays reaffirm Olson’s stature as one of the greatest nature writers of this century.

Sigurd F. Olson (1899-1982) was one of the greatest environmentalists of the twentieth century. An award-winning conservation activist and best-selling author, Olson introduced a generation of Americans to the importance of wilderness. He served as president of the Wilderness Society and the National Parks Association and was honored by the Sierra Club and National Wildlife Federation for his work. Olson’s nine books frequently appeared on best-seller lists across the nation.

Olson reflects on a life spent intimately with nature, which has meant to him ‘a lifetime of searching for meaning.’ It is a serene celebration of a ‘golden thread’ that runs through his life.

Wall Street Journal

Elder woodsman Sigurd Olson had a knack for striking the common cord-so it is fitting that these last, brief pieces, rooted in the Quetico-Superior country, but ranging far beyond, deal with the common stock of outdoor experiences.

Kirkus

Naturalist Olson reminisces on a lifetime of experiences in the wilderness around Lake Superior and lands northward. The final essay ‘An Ethic for the Land,’ poignantly sums up the carefully developed sense that Olson’s way of life-as well as his own life-is coming to an end. The essays convey the frightening message that memories may soon be all that any of us has of the wilderness that Olson has lived in and loved.

Library Journal

This collection of essays is pure poetry. Olson writes lyrically of the lakes and streams and waterfalls, of the prairies and forests, and of the flora and fauna, but above all of the humans who inhabit or inhabited this region. Olson urges on readers an ‘ethic of the land,’ a view that must stop devastation and decay, pollution and spoliation.

Publishers Weekly