Northland College’s Timber Wolf Alliance (TWA) successfully hosted the the 2024 Great Lakes Wolf Symposium on October 15–16, attracting over 150 participants from eleven states, two Canadian provinces, and as… Read More →
The Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute has announced the winning 2023 books for the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA). Restoring Eden by Elizabeth D. Hilborn has been selected for the top prize in nature writing. “Reminiscent of Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring, and written with elegance and sensitivity,” observed Institute director Alan Brew,…
The Timber Wolf Alliance at Northland College is proud to celebrate Wolf Awareness Week, taking place from October 15 to 21, 2023, with events in Duluth, Minnesota, and Ashland, Wisconsin. This annual observance aims to raise awareness about wolves and their vital role in our ecosystem. Building upon the rich tradition established by former Wisconsin…
Northland College is proud to announce that Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, associate director of the Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute and a HEAL Earth Partnership doctoral fellow, has been appointed to the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board by Governor Tony Evers. Jennings, a citizen of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, brings a wealth…
The Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute has announced the winning books for the 2022 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA). In the Adult Nonfiction category, a trio of books was jointly awarded the top prize: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (Random House); How…
In the entryway to the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute building on the Northland College campus, a display cabinet houses memorabilia from Sigurd Olson’s life. Nestled among these objects, next to a Finnish Puukko knife and under a Case penknife, is a worn and creased piece of paper with printed text that reads: “The Quetico Provincial…
The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute archives include a small, saddle-stitched pamphlet titled Two Essays by Sigurd F. Olson. The pamphlet was produced by the Institute and, though undated, was likely published shortly after Olson’s death in 1982. The first essay in the pamphlet is titled “Those Intangible Things,” and a note explains that the essay…
In the summer of 1994, a number of individuals with homes or summer cabins near Cable, Wisconsin, received a card in the mail. A small piece of gray paper with four pine trees etched in green was glued to front of the cream-colored card, and inside crisp, green text invited recipients of the card to…
Chequamegon Bay and the wetlands and waterways associated with it are one of the most ecologically significant areas in the Lake Superior Basin. The Bay and its surrounding watersheds contain approximately one quarter of the coastal wetlands and one fifth of the nearshore waters associated with the United States’ Lake Superior coast, and many of…
In the fall of 1937, Sigurd Olson converted a one-car garage located in front of his Ely, Minnesota, home into a simple writing studio that he called “the shack.” Olson spent many hours writing in the shack, and over the years it accumulated a rich assortment of items significant to Olson—old fishing hats, pipes, photos,…
