Posted on

Sigurd Olson’s Birthday

4/4/20 – With the help of a few fresh inches of snow, I was able to celebrate the birthday of Sigurd Olson by heading out on a wilderness ski. -Jessica

We leave the high, bare slopes with their shifting snows and glide down into the close intimacy of birch and spruce, the trail winding in and out of thickets, down little slopes and up again, dodging under branches and around rocks and trees with the same feeling that portages give, or game trails, or any primitive paths through unbroken country. Cross-country skiing holds much of surprise and change, but best of all is the feeling of closeness to the woods themselves, to the sounds of birds and trees and the wind.

–Sigurd F. Olson, The Singing Wilderness, 226
Alton side of the portage into Beth Lake.