While traveling recently in both the far north of Minnesota and the Rocky Mountain west, I enjoyed Sigurd F. Olson's "Open Horizons." Mr. Olson was a resident of Ely, MN, and a local favorite as both an author and naturalist.
Although Mr. Olson's father was a Baptist preacher, he adopted the theory of evolution during the course of his education. In addition, some of his sentiments about the primacy of wilderness go beyond Biblical limits. Those criticisms aside, however, Olson presents his passion for the wild with rich vocabulary and resonating experiences. As with any book, the reader is encouraged to eat the hay and spit out the briers.
I am reproducing a section of chapter three, "Feel of the Land," because a group of teen boys to whom I read this chapter found it especially intriguing. In addition, this portion reminds all Americans of their pioneer roots--a heritage which should never be forgotten.
Feel of the Land...
America is still close to the frontier, so close in fact we can almost hear the rumble of wagon trains heading west. Burning leaves in the dusk of Indian summer bring memories of times when skies were red from prairie fires and flaming woodlands along the routes of migration. Far horizons thrill us as they did then, the blue and white of distant mountains, the reaches of open space on deserts and plains. In the mists of morning along our rivers and lakes, ghosts speak to us of unnamed waterways flowing clean and full to the sea.
When we cross the great plains it may be hard for Americans to remember soil that had never known a plow or vast herds of buffalo, though this is part of our recent past. While our way of life has changed, there is within us a feel for the land and what it used to be. It is a part of our bone and sinew, part of the very air we breathe.
We treasure reminders of those days and over fireplace mantels hang squirrel rifles, powder horns, and bits of pewter to catch the light. At our gates are wagon wheels, though most of us have never ridden anything slower than an automobile. We hang oaken buckets in wells that have never known water....We watch "Wagon Train," Gunsmoke," and "Bonanza," thrilling to scenes that were real a few generations ago.
We cannot forget, and those days seem to our present frantic era like the golden age, though we know they were fraught with danger, insecurity, and bloodshed. It was a time of high adventure and challenge when one could always move if dissatisfied. Rewards often went to the bold and unscrupulous, and if a man could hold what he found, no questions were asked. There was always new country to the west.
Over the years a growing sense of continental belonging and a fierce attachment to new found freedoms emerged. Few who followed the long trails remembered much of their European heritage, but they did know that in the old countries there was little chance for betterment or scope for their lives, and that men lived an died without knowing what a life of freedom could really mean. And so whether they were aware of it or not a loyalty was developed to the soil, a loyalty welded by hope and faith, privation and danger, and the terrible effort of wresting farms, towns, and cities from the wilderness. Moderns think they have forgotten and in their urban lives have no need of this past, but deep within them is a smoldering nostalgia that can burst into flame should existence become too crowded, boring, and commonplace.
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Olson gives us something to think about, and perhaps helps to explain the deep fascination many feel for the rugged reaches of the wild. As an outdoors man, I found many of Olson's experiences a reflection of my own. He writes with passion, beauty, depth, and soul.
So, why not take a vacation to the far north? Read a book by Sigurd F. Olson today!
