Spirit of the North

PRAISE

A moving and poignant testimony, Spirit of The North is an impressively memorable and inspiring compendium of reflections upon the power and beauty of nature. — Midwest Review of Books

Spirit of the North . . . captures the breadth of Olson’s writing career. . . . This book ensures his ongoing role as an inspiration for those who love the North. — Cook County News-Herald

Spirit of the North: The Quotable Sigurd F. Olson . . . filled with choice cuts from his choicest cuts from Olson’s books, shorter pieces, letters, and journals, makes the perfect literary companion. — Ripsaw

Once you read it, there's a chance the graceful phrasing that attracted readers to Olson long ago will have you searching your local bookstore or library for the full versions....

Many of the excerpts, including the last words he ever typed, are well-known to Olson admirers. But there also are lesser-known gems that provide revealing glimpses.

Here are a couple of examples:

"As long as I can remember I have felt I must get out in the sunshine, must feel the wind or the rain in my face, must have open sky and open visions all around. I cannot stand to be inside for very long especially when the weather is good." — Journal, March 30, 1966.

"It was a beautiful night for travel — twenty below, and the only sound the steady swish and creak of my snowshoes on the crust. There was a great satisfaction in knowing that the wolves were in the country, that it was wild enough and still big enough for them to roam and hunt. That night the wilderness of the Quetico-Superior was what the voyageurs had known two hundred years before, as primitive and unchanged as before discovery." — "The Singing Wilderness.''

For longtime fans of Sig Olson's writing, that should be enough to inspire a trip to the bookshelf for an old copy of one of his books, find a comfortable chair and reread those images. — St. Paul Pioneer Press