INTANGIBLE

The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute prepares people to meet the challenges of the future with intellectual and artistic creativity by promoting and protecting experiences of wildness and wonder.

To realize its mission, the Institute hosts LoonWatch, the Timber Wolf Alliance, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Awards, and numerous events for young people and adults.

LoonWatch protects common loons and their aquatic habitats through education, monitoring, and research.

With a particular focus on Wisconsin and Michigan, the Timber Wolf Alliance uses science-based information to promote human coexistence with wolves and an ecologically-functional wolf population in areas of suitable habitat.

Established in 1991, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Awards honor the literary legacy of Sigurd Olson by recognizing and encouraging contemporary writers who capture the spirit of the human relationship with the natural world and who promote awareness, preservation, appreciation, or restoration of the natural world for future generations.

To promote experiences of wildness and wonder for young people and adults, the Institute offers annual internships, camps, clinics, lectures, conferences, retreats, and outings.

Editing by Alan Brew Design by Brian Donahue, bedesign, inc.

© 2023 Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute 715-682-1223 soei@northland.edu • northland.edu/soei

Whenour daughter was six weeks old, my wife and I buckled her into a lifejacket that was nearly as large as she was and laid her carefully in the bow of our canoe, the final step before we paddled into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for a two-night excursion.

Ten months later, our daughter joined us for a ten-day canoe journey, and we celebrated her first birthday in a stand of old-growth white pines, a single candle in her morning pancake. On the final day of our trip, she reached over the side of the canoe, a tiny paddle in her hands, and took her first stroke, imitating her mother.

The following summer, her brother joined us, nestled in the stern of the canoe. We’ve been paddling together ever since, and although the kids are grown now, paddling and portaging their own canoe, we continue to spend at least a couple of days together in the Boundary Waters each year.

Canoes. They are an elegant manifestation of indigenous ingenuity. Crafted originally, and still, from cedar, spruce, and birchbark, they have been transporting individuals and families through the intricate and expansive waterways of the north for millennia.

In an essay titled “Tradition,” Sigurd Olson writes reverentially about two canvascovered canoes that he owned, describing them as “works of art” made “in the old tradition when there was time and love of the work itself.”

In this issue of Intangible, we feature four builders of wood and canvas canoes who helped to define and are carrying on this old tradition. Committed to craft, indebted to those who came before them, and paddlers all, these builders demonstrate how beauty and grace emerge from a perfect alignment of form and function. Enjoy!

I have two canvas-covered canoes, both old and beautifully made. They came from the Penobscot River in Maine long ago, and I treasure them for the tradition of craftsmanship in their construction, a pride not only of form and line but of everything that went into their building.

—Sigurd F. Olson , “Tradition,” Reflections from the North Country