Open Horizons

Olson’s inspirational life story, told in his own words, now available in paperback.

Sigurd Olson’s love affair with the wilderness began in a stream near his house in Wisconsin-he caught his first trout there with a tamarack wand, black thread, and a grasshopper as bait. Open Horizons is his autobiography, and in it he recounts a life lived on and for the land, from the wonder of boyhood fishing expeditions to decades-long conservation battles.



Writing always with the sensitive, lyric prose that characterizes his works, Olson recalls his pioneering youth on a remote Wisconsin farm, his summers as a wilderness canoe guide, and his thousands of miles of travel through the wilds of this country and Canada. “Open Horizons is the story of the unknowns I have discovered, and gone through,” he writes.

While telling his story, Olson makes a compelling case for preserving the wilderness. He puts forth his own life as an example of how nature can have a spiritual effect on the human soul, and proposes diligence on behalf of those who fight to conserve our forests, wetlands, and dunes. “If we can move into an open horizon where we can live in our modern world with ancient dreams that have always stirred us, then our work will have been done.”

ISBN 0-8166-3037-2 Paper $14.95

256 pages 12 line drawings 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 September

Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series

Translation inquiries: University of Minnesota Press