Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307819906
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
To do with the calling of loons, with northern lights, and the great silences of land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life which is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs." Thus the author sets the theme and tone of this enthralling book of discovery about one of the few great primitive areas in our country which have withstood the pressures of civilization. Acute natural perceptivity and a profound knowledge of the relationships to be found in nature combine here in vivid evocations of the sights, the sounds, the vast stillnesses, and the events of the wilderness as the seasons succeed each other. But Mr. Olson is not content merely to "describe; he probes for meanings that will lead the reader to a different and more revealing way of looking at the out-of-doors and to a deeper sense of its eternal values. In each of the thirty-four chapters of The Singing Wilderness he has sought to capture an essential quality of our magnificent lake and forest heritage. He shows us what can be read from the rocks of the great Canadian Shield; he offers a delightful essay on the virtues of pine knots as fuel; he writes of the ways of a canoe, of flashing trout in the pools of the Isabella, of tamarack bogs, caribou moss, the flight of wild geese, timber wolves, and the birds of the ski trails. And much more, with something to satisfy every taste for wilderness experience. Superbly illustrated with 38 black-and-white drawings by Francis Lee Jaques, The Singing Wilderness is a book that no lover of nature will want to be without. To anyone who contemplates a vacation in the lake country of northern Minnesota and adjoining Canada, it is the perfect vade mecum.
Singing Wilderness
Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307819906
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
To do with the calling of loons, with northern lights, and the great silences of land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life which is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs." Thus the author sets the theme and tone of this enthralling book of discovery about one of the few great primitive areas in our country which have withstood the pressures of civilization. Acute natural perceptivity and a profound knowledge of the relationships to be found in nature combine here in vivid evocations of the sights, the sounds, the vast stillnesses, and the events of the wilderness as the seasons succeed each other. But Mr. Olson is not content merely to "describe; he probes for meanings that will lead the reader to a different and more revealing way of looking at the out-of-doors and to a deeper sense of its eternal values. In each of the thirty-four chapters of The Singing Wilderness he has sought to capture an essential quality of our magnificent lake and forest heritage. He shows us what can be read from the rocks of the great Canadian Shield; he offers a delightful essay on the virtues of pine knots as fuel; he writes of the ways of a canoe, of flashing trout in the pools of the Isabella, of tamarack bogs, caribou moss, the flight of wild geese, timber wolves, and the birds of the ski trails. And much more, with something to satisfy every taste for wilderness experience. Superbly illustrated with 38 black-and-white drawings by Francis Lee Jaques, The Singing Wilderness is a book that no lover of nature will want to be without. To anyone who contemplates a vacation in the lake country of northern Minnesota and adjoining Canada, it is the perfect vade mecum.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307819906
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
To do with the calling of loons, with northern lights, and the great silences of land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life which is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs." Thus the author sets the theme and tone of this enthralling book of discovery about one of the few great primitive areas in our country which have withstood the pressures of civilization. Acute natural perceptivity and a profound knowledge of the relationships to be found in nature combine here in vivid evocations of the sights, the sounds, the vast stillnesses, and the events of the wilderness as the seasons succeed each other. But Mr. Olson is not content merely to "describe; he probes for meanings that will lead the reader to a different and more revealing way of looking at the out-of-doors and to a deeper sense of its eternal values. In each of the thirty-four chapters of The Singing Wilderness he has sought to capture an essential quality of our magnificent lake and forest heritage. He shows us what can be read from the rocks of the great Canadian Shield; he offers a delightful essay on the virtues of pine knots as fuel; he writes of the ways of a canoe, of flashing trout in the pools of the Isabella, of tamarack bogs, caribou moss, the flight of wild geese, timber wolves, and the birds of the ski trails. And much more, with something to satisfy every taste for wilderness experience. Superbly illustrated with 38 black-and-white drawings by Francis Lee Jaques, The Singing Wilderness is a book that no lover of nature will want to be without. To anyone who contemplates a vacation in the lake country of northern Minnesota and adjoining Canada, it is the perfect vade mecum.
A Private Wilderness
Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966850
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
The personal diaries of one of America’s best-loved naturalists, revealing his difficult and inspiring path to finding his voice and becoming a writer Few writers are as renowned for their eloquence about the natural world, its power and fragility, as Sigurd F. Olson (1899–1982). Before he could give expression to The Singing Wilderness, however, he had to find his own voice. It is this struggle, the painstaking and often simply painful process of becoming the writer and conservationist now familiar to us, that Olson documented in the journal entries gathered here. Written mostly during the years from 1930 to 1941, Olson’s journals describe the dreams and frustrations of an aspiring writer honing his skills, pursuing recognition, and facing doubt while following the academic career that allowed him to live and work even as it consumed so much of his time. But even as he speaks with immediacy and intensity about the conditions of his apprenticeship, Olson can be seen developing the singular way of observing and depicting the natural world that would bring him fame—and also, more significantly, alert others to the urgent need to understand and protect that world. Author of Olson’s definitive biography, editor David Backes brings a deep knowledge of the writer to these journals, providing critical context, commentary, and insights along the way. When Olson wrote, in the spring of 1941, “What I am afraid of now is that the world will blow up just as I am getting it organized to suit me,” he could hardly have known how right he would prove to be. It is propitious that at our present moment, when the world seems once more balanced on the precipice, we have the words of Sigurd F. Olson to remind us of what matters—and of the hard work and the wonder that such a reckoning requires.
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966850
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
The personal diaries of one of America’s best-loved naturalists, revealing his difficult and inspiring path to finding his voice and becoming a writer Few writers are as renowned for their eloquence about the natural world, its power and fragility, as Sigurd F. Olson (1899–1982). Before he could give expression to The Singing Wilderness, however, he had to find his own voice. It is this struggle, the painstaking and often simply painful process of becoming the writer and conservationist now familiar to us, that Olson documented in the journal entries gathered here. Written mostly during the years from 1930 to 1941, Olson’s journals describe the dreams and frustrations of an aspiring writer honing his skills, pursuing recognition, and facing doubt while following the academic career that allowed him to live and work even as it consumed so much of his time. But even as he speaks with immediacy and intensity about the conditions of his apprenticeship, Olson can be seen developing the singular way of observing and depicting the natural world that would bring him fame—and also, more significantly, alert others to the urgent need to understand and protect that world. Author of Olson’s definitive biography, editor David Backes brings a deep knowledge of the writer to these journals, providing critical context, commentary, and insights along the way. When Olson wrote, in the spring of 1941, “What I am afraid of now is that the world will blow up just as I am getting it organized to suit me,” he could hardly have known how right he would prove to be. It is propitious that at our present moment, when the world seems once more balanced on the precipice, we have the words of Sigurd F. Olson to remind us of what matters—and of the hard work and the wonder that such a reckoning requires.
Singing in the Wilderness
Author: Wilfrid Mellers
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252025297
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Mellers (composer and professor emeritus, University of York) begins with the confusion of the (unfamiliar) forest within, audible in Wagner's late and Shoenberg's early works, in Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet, and Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. The next section, The Forest Without, examines Charles Koechlin's Le Foret Feerique and Milhaud's Le Boeuf Sur le Toit which embrace the real jungle without and the imaginative jungle within. Part 3 shows Villa-Lobos and Carlos Chavez connecting, as Mellers puts it, "the jungle within the mind and the asphalt jungle of a rapidly industrialized metropolis." Part four explores interrelationships between wilderness and machine through the work of Carl Ruggles, Varese, Partch, Reich, and the Australian, Peter Sculthorpe. Finally, the erasure of border between wilderness and civilization is the focus in works by Ellington and Gershwin. Suitable for both musicians and non-musicians. c. Book News Inc.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252025297
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Mellers (composer and professor emeritus, University of York) begins with the confusion of the (unfamiliar) forest within, audible in Wagner's late and Shoenberg's early works, in Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet, and Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. The next section, The Forest Without, examines Charles Koechlin's Le Foret Feerique and Milhaud's Le Boeuf Sur le Toit which embrace the real jungle without and the imaginative jungle within. Part 3 shows Villa-Lobos and Carlos Chavez connecting, as Mellers puts it, "the jungle within the mind and the asphalt jungle of a rapidly industrialized metropolis." Part four explores interrelationships between wilderness and machine through the work of Carl Ruggles, Varese, Partch, Reich, and the Australian, Peter Sculthorpe. Finally, the erasure of border between wilderness and civilization is the focus in works by Ellington and Gershwin. Suitable for both musicians and non-musicians. c. Book News Inc.
Breath of Wilderness
Author: Kristin Eggerling
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
ISBN: 1938486412
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
Breath of Wilderness is the story of Olson's love for wild places and how that love transformed his life, inspiring him to play a key role in the movement to preserve wilderness throughout North America, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the largest lakeland wilderness in the country.
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
ISBN: 1938486412
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
Breath of Wilderness is the story of Olson's love for wild places and how that love transformed his life, inspiring him to play a key role in the movement to preserve wilderness throughout North America, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the largest lakeland wilderness in the country.
LISTENING POINT
Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307822257
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
“Listening Point tells of what I have seen and heard on a bare glaciated spit of rock in the Quetico-Superior country. Each time I have gone there I have found something new that has opened up whole realms of thought and interest. From it I have glimpsed the immensity of space and at times the grandeur of creation. “I believe that I have experienced there one of the oldest satisfactions of man; when as he gazed upon the earth and sky, he sensed the first vague glimmerings of meaning in the universe. I know that while we were born with curiosity and wonder, and our early years are full of the adventure they bring, such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind. “Listening Point is dedicated to rekindling that flame by capturing this almost forgotten sense of wonder, and learning from rocks and trees and all the life that surrounds them truths that can encompass all. “I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one comes sharpens one’s awareness, can one see and hear in the sense in which I use these words. Everyone has a listening point somewhere, some quiet place where he can contemplate the awesome universe. This book is simply the story of what such a place has meant to me. The experiences that have been mine can be known by anyone who will make the effort.” Thus the author of The Singing Wilderness sets the tone of his new book—a book that not only successfully recaptures the to-be-treasured sense of wonder of which he speaks, but also brings to life, in all its essential grandeur, the unparalleled heritage of lakes and rivers and forests we are so fortunate to be able to call our own. Listening Point is a book that will rekindle spirits wearied by the turmoils of twentieth-century living—that will teach us a new way to look at the world around us and to feel the better for it. With 28 magnificent black-and-white drawings by Francis Lee Jacques.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307822257
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
“Listening Point tells of what I have seen and heard on a bare glaciated spit of rock in the Quetico-Superior country. Each time I have gone there I have found something new that has opened up whole realms of thought and interest. From it I have glimpsed the immensity of space and at times the grandeur of creation. “I believe that I have experienced there one of the oldest satisfactions of man; when as he gazed upon the earth and sky, he sensed the first vague glimmerings of meaning in the universe. I know that while we were born with curiosity and wonder, and our early years are full of the adventure they bring, such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind. “Listening Point is dedicated to rekindling that flame by capturing this almost forgotten sense of wonder, and learning from rocks and trees and all the life that surrounds them truths that can encompass all. “I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one comes sharpens one’s awareness, can one see and hear in the sense in which I use these words. Everyone has a listening point somewhere, some quiet place where he can contemplate the awesome universe. This book is simply the story of what such a place has meant to me. The experiences that have been mine can be known by anyone who will make the effort.” Thus the author of The Singing Wilderness sets the tone of his new book—a book that not only successfully recaptures the to-be-treasured sense of wonder of which he speaks, but also brings to life, in all its essential grandeur, the unparalleled heritage of lakes and rivers and forests we are so fortunate to be able to call our own. Listening Point is a book that will rekindle spirits wearied by the turmoils of twentieth-century living—that will teach us a new way to look at the world around us and to feel the better for it. With 28 magnificent black-and-white drawings by Francis Lee Jacques.
Singing to the Plants
Author: Stephan V, Beyer
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826347312
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 477
Book Description
In the Upper Amazon, mestizos are the Spanish-speaking descendants of Hispanic colonizers and the indigenous peoples of the jungle. Some mestizos have migrated to Amazon towns and cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa; most remain in small villages. They have retained features of a folk Catholicism and traditional Hispanic medicine, and have incorporated much of the religious tradition of the Amazon, especially its healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of potent plant hallucinogens, including ayahuasca. The result is a uniquely eclectic shamanist culture that continues to fascinate outsiders with its brilliant visionary art. Ayahuasca shamanism is now part of global culture. Once the terrain of anthropologists, it is now the subject of novels and spiritual memoirs, while ayahuasca shamans perform their healing rituals in Ontario and Wisconsin. Singing to the Plants sets forth just what this shamanism is about--what happens at an ayahuasca healing ceremony, how the apprentice shaman forms a spiritual relationship with the healing plant spirits, how sorcerers inflict the harm that the shaman heals, and the ways that plants are used in healing, love magic, and sorcery.
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826347312
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 477
Book Description
In the Upper Amazon, mestizos are the Spanish-speaking descendants of Hispanic colonizers and the indigenous peoples of the jungle. Some mestizos have migrated to Amazon towns and cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa; most remain in small villages. They have retained features of a folk Catholicism and traditional Hispanic medicine, and have incorporated much of the religious tradition of the Amazon, especially its healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of potent plant hallucinogens, including ayahuasca. The result is a uniquely eclectic shamanist culture that continues to fascinate outsiders with its brilliant visionary art. Ayahuasca shamanism is now part of global culture. Once the terrain of anthropologists, it is now the subject of novels and spiritual memoirs, while ayahuasca shamans perform their healing rituals in Ontario and Wisconsin. Singing to the Plants sets forth just what this shamanism is about--what happens at an ayahuasca healing ceremony, how the apprentice shaman forms a spiritual relationship with the healing plant spirits, how sorcerers inflict the harm that the shaman heals, and the ways that plants are used in healing, love magic, and sorcery.
Reflections from the North Country
Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307761614
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Written in the last years of his life, Reflections from the North Country is often considered Sigurd Olson's most intellectually significant work. In an account alive with anecdote and insight, Olson outlines the wilderness philosophy he developed while working as an outspoken advocate for the conservation of America's natural heritage.Based on speeches delivered at town meetings and government hearings, this book joins The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point as the core of Olson's work. Upon its initial publication in 1976, Reflections from the North Country, with Olson's unique combination of lyrical nature writing and activism, became an inspiration to the burgeoning environmental movement, selling over 46,000 copies in hardcover. In this wide-ranging work, Olson evokes the soaring grace of raven, osprey, and eagle, the call of the loon, and the song of the hermit thrush. He challenges the reader to loosen the grasp of technology and the rush of contemporary life and make room for a sense of wonder heightened by being in nature. From evolution to the meaning and power of solitude, Olson meditates on the human condition, offering eloquent testimony to the joys and truths he discovered in his beloved north-country wilderness.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307761614
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Written in the last years of his life, Reflections from the North Country is often considered Sigurd Olson's most intellectually significant work. In an account alive with anecdote and insight, Olson outlines the wilderness philosophy he developed while working as an outspoken advocate for the conservation of America's natural heritage.Based on speeches delivered at town meetings and government hearings, this book joins The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point as the core of Olson's work. Upon its initial publication in 1976, Reflections from the North Country, with Olson's unique combination of lyrical nature writing and activism, became an inspiration to the burgeoning environmental movement, selling over 46,000 copies in hardcover. In this wide-ranging work, Olson evokes the soaring grace of raven, osprey, and eagle, the call of the loon, and the song of the hermit thrush. He challenges the reader to loosen the grasp of technology and the rush of contemporary life and make room for a sense of wonder heightened by being in nature. From evolution to the meaning and power of solitude, Olson meditates on the human condition, offering eloquent testimony to the joys and truths he discovered in his beloved north-country wilderness.
A Wilderness Within
Author: David Backes
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452903132
Category : Conservationists
Languages : en
Pages : 426
Book Description
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452903132
Category : Conservationists
Languages : en
Pages : 426
Book Description
Of Time and Place
Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307822281
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Book Description
Of Time and Place is a legacy from one of the best-loved woodsman writers of our time. To the outdoorsmen who often canoed and portaged with him through the northern Lake country, Sigurd Olson was affectionately known as the Bourgeois—the name that voyageurs gave two hundred years ago to the trusted guides who took them over this same territory. And in this, his last book, completed just before his death in early 1982, Olson is our guide through his wide-ranging memories of a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of the wilderness, especially of his beloved Quetico-Superior country. He 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. He muses on the fragile beauty of the prairies, on the significance of ancient trails, on the resonance and the origins of place names. Whether he is remembering the day when he caught his first brook trout, or admiring the playful grace of the otter, or pondering the earth’s great cycles of climatic change, these moving and evocative essays reaffirm Audubon magazine’s celebration of Sigurd Olson as “the poetic voice of the modern wilderness movement.”
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307822281
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Book Description
Of Time and Place is a legacy from one of the best-loved woodsman writers of our time. To the outdoorsmen who often canoed and portaged with him through the northern Lake country, Sigurd Olson was affectionately known as the Bourgeois—the name that voyageurs gave two hundred years ago to the trusted guides who took them over this same territory. And in this, his last book, completed just before his death in early 1982, Olson is our guide through his wide-ranging memories of a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of the wilderness, especially of his beloved Quetico-Superior country. He 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. He muses on the fragile beauty of the prairies, on the significance of ancient trails, on the resonance and the origins of place names. Whether he is remembering the day when he caught his first brook trout, or admiring the playful grace of the otter, or pondering the earth’s great cycles of climatic change, these moving and evocative essays reaffirm Audubon magazine’s celebration of Sigurd Olson as “the poetic voice of the modern wilderness movement.”
Sigurd F. Olson's Wilderness Days
Author: Sigurd F. Olson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
In the evocative words of one of America's best-loved writers about nature, and in 56 beautiful photographs, this book crystallizes the very essence of that magnificent wilderness with which its author is so deeply identified. In it he has culled from his writings those moments that most vividly summon up the turn of the seasons in the great woodlands and waters of the fabled Quetico-Superior region overlapping the Ontario-Minnesota border.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
In the evocative words of one of America's best-loved writers about nature, and in 56 beautiful photographs, this book crystallizes the very essence of that magnificent wilderness with which its author is so deeply identified. In it he has culled from his writings those moments that most vividly summon up the turn of the seasons in the great woodlands and waters of the fabled Quetico-Superior region overlapping the Ontario-Minnesota border.