The Lonely Land

by Sigurd F. Olson

Octavo, PP.272, Illustrated By Francis Lee Jaques, Travel And Adventure On Canada’s Wild Churchill River; Signed Best Wishes

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Travel, Adventure, Environment, History, Outdoors

272 pages, Hardcover

First published March 12, 1961

About the author

Sigurd F. Olson was an American author, environmentalist, and advocate for the protection of wilderness. For more than thirty years, he served as a wilderness guide in the lakes and forests of the Quetico-Superior country of northern Minnesota and northeastern Ontario. He was known honorifically as the Bourgeois — a term the voyageurs of old used of their trusted leaders.

Reviews

[Martin Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

We took countless canoe trips to southern Ontario when I was younger--for weeks at a time we never saw another soul. My dad had left me this book when he passed, and I finally read it, almost in one setting.

Our trips, waterfalls and all, paled in comparison to the mighty adventure that Olson describes. With is "Voyageurs", he covered an amazing amount of ground. What makes it more amazing is that many of the early traders and explorers took the same route UPSTREAM, poling, and paddling like mad.

This book makes one appreciate the vast wildnerness that still exists on our continent, and the power of the human spirit. Olson writes crisply and cleanly, and paints a vivid picture of their trials... it is a terrific book.

I see another reviewer mapped out the route online, and I'm now off to Google Earth!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from so many different perspective. The historical research and quotes by so many of the old explorers added a lot and help emphasize the significance of the book. The comraderie of the characters and their individual personalities and strengths was also very meaningful part of the book. However most important it was a great adventure tale that made me feel like I was right there with the rest if the crew falling the same way and thinking the same thoughts. One if my favourite all time reads!!

[Anthony Meaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A straightforward retelling of Olson's trip down (up?) the Churchill River in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

With a team of friends (most of whom are either senior government officials or captains of industry) they set out to retrace the routes of such nation builders as McKenzie, Frobisher and Simpson... and they did. Successfully and without any real incident.

So in a sense this is a very well written canoe "trip report" that canoeing enthusiasts (both armchair and otherwise) will adore. Those looking for his brilliant nature writing should check out some of his other books.

What's interesting is that this trip coincided somewhat with the ill fated Art Moffat trip which resulted in his death and the subsequent book "Death on the Barrens" by George Grinell.

The tragedy of Moffat's death certainly imbued a greater sense of gravitas and pathos to Grinell's book but beyond that Grinell really laid his soul bare in gut wrenching fashion making it a much more compelling read.

The lesson in all that? Well prepared and planned trips that don't end in disaster make for excellent outings but not exciting reading.

I always tell myself when going into the wilderness - don't have an adventure. An adventure is what makes a good book. But when it is happening to you it is not an adventure - it's an ordeal.

[Scott Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite enjoying all the books I have read so far, I was looking for one that was less based around disaster and survival, but more about thriving in the wild. I certainly got this in The Lonely Land. It got rave reviews on Good Reads so I gave it a go. It did not disappoint.

The Lonely Land follows Sigurd Olson, a renowned woodsman of his time (book was written in 1961) and 5 of his friends (who all have equally impressive Outdoorsy CV's) along on their 500 mile paddle down the Churchill River in Northern Saskatchewan. They follow the waterways of Voyageurs, old Hudson Bay Traders and adventurers alike.

It very much tells two stories, one of Olson and his friends and the others of those traders that paddled along the same stretch over the last 200 years. Each chapter opened up with a quote from the diary of one of these trader or adventurer, each one relating to the same part of the river which said chapter was going to cover.


For me, there was a real child like sense of adventure. It was somewhat like reading an adult version of Enid Blyton's Famous 5 or Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom. Despite torrential rain and gale force winds Olson captured the romance of long adventures with the troubles of navigating the rapids, 'encounters' with "Indians" and the sneaky rum tipples in camp. All of this romance shone through because although this group were very much experts, the focus of the book was purely on the excitement of adventure; going down rapids, cooking in camp and being with your friends. This stands out even more so when you the men that feature in this book are all in their 60's! Boys will be Boys.

This brought back great memories of my trip on the Bowron lakes in 2016 and I could relate to their adventure albeit far longer than any of mine. I highly recommend The Lonely Land to anyone who has ever been on a canoe trip or is planning one just to whet their appetite for what may lay ahead

We are giving this a resounding 5 Trees

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[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This account of a 500-mile trip by six men in three canoes on the Churchill River across Saskatchewan would be interesting in itself for the historical and geological information presented. With the help of online satellite photos and maps it became an exciting study of the Canadian Shield and led me to a greater appreciation of the vast areas covered by the explorers and fur traders of Canada's past.

Beginning with author Sigurd F. Olson's description of the Canadian Shield, I could see on Wikimapia (at a scale of about 20 miles/inch) the solid rock of the Shield with the glacial gouges from north to south, and a depression running across this at its southern edge. The gouges and depression are filled with water and from above it looks like an almost continuous convoluted body of water extending eastward to Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay.

Olson's detailed description of their journey east from Île-à-la-Crosse, however, provided a much different experience. I soon realized that this water was a series of lakes, each defined by its elevation, and that between many of them there was only a short stretch of river, but more importantly a drop in elevation in the form of a falls or rapids. The importance of work done by the original explorers and fur traders was frequently employed in deciding whether to run or portage around these descents by our travelers. By zooming in on Wikimapia I was often able to see the whitewater being described, though the experience of danger and excitement came exclusively from the book.

Olson's words and these online resources brought back fond memories of my boyhood hydrological experiments with puddles and streams, and trying to visualize them from the perspective of an ant. This book provided me a greatly enhanced understanding of geology and the importance of past North American exploration and cartography, and greatly extended northward my familiarity with Canada.

[Gary Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am rereading all of Sigurd Olson's books in their order of publication. He has long been my favorite author, and this is the third or fourth time I've read this book.

Sigurd's previous two books were topical explorations of nature. This book is a narrative based on a 500-mile canoe trip he made with five companions. In addition to the experiences that group had, the book also contains the quotes from the writing of some early explorers, voyageurs, and other travelers over those same routes dating back to the 1700s. My reading contained one more layer, a canoe trip I took with five great companions in 1989 following the first 250 miles of Sigurd's path. As I read the book again, images from that trip filled my head, and I am not sure if these resulted from Sigurd's great description or from my own memories of the same scene. We too experienced the seemingly weightless joy of surfing big waves with gale-force tail winds, the struggle to make headway when those winds were in our face, the thrill of running whitewater rapids, and feeling the bite of pack straps and getting close to the land on numerous portages.

Sigurd's writing always moves gracefully from the specific incidents and places to touch the abstractness of their significance. In that way the story of this trip is the story of every extended wilderness canoe trip: great companions facing challenges head on with profound results. One of Sigurd's companions, said about the trip, "I went along to iron out the wrinkles in my soul."

Like Sigurd, my group selected me as the Bourgeois, what the voyageurs called their leader. A trip like this has inherent dangers and many critical decisions, and requires someone to make the final decision. My copy of the book was given to me from my companions after that 1989 trip, each of them having signed it. Mel, Gershan, Goldie, Michael and Chris: thank you for that. The copy of the book and the memories it holds are two of my most prized possessions.

[Mark Geisthardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book Sigurd Olson tells the story of a 500 mile canoe trip, from Ile A La Crosse to Cumberland House, in northwest Canada. As he tells the story he also fills in the history of this place and this route and the points along the way. For someone who loves canoeing this is a must read.

I'm in the process of revisiting Sigurd's books and very much enjoying every word!

And reread again in 2022 - enjoyed it just as much as the first and second time!

[Pamk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just loved the sense of the wildness and peacefulness of the country that these 4 modern day voyageurs traveled and the reflections of the author as this land sat on the brink of development. This book was written in the '60's and sadly I'm sure much of the wilderness that they passed through is now gone as it's an area that was full of oil.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

People fly all over the globe for adventures. Mr. Olsen and his five buddies had an incredible adventure in one of the most remote parts of North America, a place few people even remember exist. I would love to recreate this trip to see how things have changed, I'm guessing they haven't changed too much...

[Doug Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book by Sigurd Olson. This one follows a long trip he and several companions made along the Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan. Olson's narrative is excellent as always as he reviews numerous events along the way and continues to relay his wilderness philosophy through the retelling of the adventure.

[Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is an excellent book written with a simple prose to understand the author narrative , is s book that once you started you don’t want to put it down . I’m sorry I have not enough time myself to read it in one sitting down .

[Micah Winters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, my first sustained encounter with Minnesota's patron saint of nature writing, is set a thousand miles northwest of Lake Superior, chronicling a six-man crew's rugged canoe journey down northern Saskatchewan's Churchill River. Though not exactly literary, Olson's writing seems to fit perfectly with the landscape he travels through: hard-edged and unfrivolous on one hand, graceful and enchanting on the other. For my part, I was totally captured by the spirit of conscious adventuring the text evoked.

Within this, intriguingly and urgently present throughout was the tension between colonial expansion and indigeneity represented by both the journey and the recording of the journey. For Olson, the ghosts of ancient French voyaguers are equally present along his crew's route as the First Nation peoples they meet along their travels; and his recognition of the looming apocalypse of industrial expansion stands in tension with his spirit's pining for preservation, for the very presence of these travelers incontrovertibly represents (yet another) harbinger of that apocalypse. It's the paradox baked into any attempt of an inheritor of the settler colonial legacy to ethically engage with the land, and Olson at least allows this often unspoken-of tension space on his page. Ultimately, though, it is respect and awe for this remote canoe country that preside over Olson's account, as essential of ingredients of decolonial ecological engagement as any.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love letter to the old North and to the voyageurs old, Sigurd F. Olson’s “The Lonely Land” is good medicine for anyone who longs for adventure, craves the simple pleasures of wilderness, and finds rest and rejuvenation in the peace and solitude of nature. Olson captured the feeling perfectly and with his characteristic lyrical simplicity when, at the conclusion of their 500-mile canoe trip from Ile à la Cross to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Cumberland House across central Saskatchewan — Churchill River country —, reporters were waiting, hoping to get a newsworthy story from him and his companions, “We tried to satisfy them all but somehow our answers sounded flat and innocuous. There was really nothing we had done that was very exciting or that would make a good story, no hairbreadth escapes or great dangers, nothing but a daily succession of adventures of the spirit, the sort of thing that could not make headlines.” A daily succession of adventures of the spirit, whether for an hour, a day, a week, a month, or a lifetime … who wouldn’t want that?

[༺Kiki༻ · Rating 5 out of 5]

You might also enjoy:

Nonfiction
✱ Singing Wilderness
✱ Listening Point
✱ Runes of the North
✱ Of Time and Place
✱ Coming into the Country
✱ Cache Lake Country: Life in the North Woods
✱ From a Wooden Canoe
✱ The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes
✱ One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey
✱ A Place on the Water
✱ Woman of the Boundary Waters
✱ Canoeing with the Cree
✱ The River Home: An Angler's Explorations
✱ Kings of the Yukon: One Summer Paddling Across the Far North
✱ The Women's Great Lakes Reader

Fiction
✱ The River

[Tom Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this Sigurd book was the best of them all, it had a bit of an edge, a story, and a little character development that is lacking in his other books. I still hold him in the highest esteem for saving the BWCA and other wilderness areas.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Olson's writing. I wish he knew the creator as well as he does his creation. great book to take on that backpacking or canoe tripping weekend.

[Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non-fiction. The great outdoors.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this is an exciting memoir of a very challenging canoe trip following the old voyageur routes. Well written as usual for Olson.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes ya just gotta read someone’s favorite book because they ask you to.

[Thomas J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a trip the author and his friends made in about 1960, along the Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan, from Ile a la Crosse to Cumberland House. Olson was a canoeist and advocate for wilderness from Ely Minnesota, who did a lot of travel through the Quetico Superior country on the Minnesota/Ontario border.

A friend who knows that I have lived and worked in the same area recommended one of his books to me - however, the one she mentioned wasn't available through our library system, but this one, "The Lonely Land" was. So I figured one canoe trip book was pretty much like any other, so I read it. I was pleasantly surprised that this one involved a trip in Saskatchewan, in an area that I was familiar with. Although I never canoed the Churchill, I have visited, by road, all of the communities that he passed by. And so I had hoped that his group had had more interaction with the local residents, but they didn't, and seldom mentioned any names.

So, for what it's worth, it's a good book about a canoe trip, with some interesting excerpts from early fur traders' diaries at the start of each chapter, but mostly a lot of la la la wilderness is nice, camping is fun, we're paddling in big waves and down scary rapids...Overall, not very interesting, although I had to give it three stars for being well written.

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A relief after Olson's Listening Point to discover that this one has something of a plot/structure! Olson and five friends embark on a canoe trip through Canada's wilderness, recreating one of the routes of the voyageurs. As Olson himself writes at the end, "There was really nothing we had done that was exciting or that would make a good story, no hairbreadth escapes or great dangers, nothing but a daily succession of adventures of the spirit." But those, too, bring a pleasure in reading about.

I must note, as in the two other books by Olson that I have read -- but given the subject matter here, to a greater degree than in the others -- the writer holds an antiquated view of who he calls "Indians." For his time, they are on the more positive end of the spectrum -- genuine appreciation, coupled with glorifying their "simple ways" -- but they are still eyeroll-to-cringe inducing in pretty much every instance. It doesn't make Olson not worth reading, but it is worth noting.

[Savvas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. I found this for $1 at a used book sale in a church near my buddy's new place. The art looked vaguely similar to another book recommended by a different friend I picked up but haven't read yet, Goodbye To A River. Turns out both outdoor books by the same publisher. This is written with such beautiful prose and philosophical profundity that conjures up a sense of awe and wonder at the wild world around us. I wanted to take a canoe trip with my friends. I felt like I was on one while reading this. I immediately ordered three more of Olson's works after I finished this one.

[Peter V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disapointng ...This book is not up to the same standard of eloquent nature writing as The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point. Both which are five star books and some of my all time favourites. Nor does it grip the reader like Patterson's The Dangerous River.

If you are wanting to experience Olson's fine writing and enjoy nature essays, start with The Singing Wilderness.

[Roma Giannina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and experiential like all of Olsen’s works…. Although in 2023 have to acknowledge how dated and ‘privileged’ his narrow worldview was… the talks of Indians in their dirty hovels or whatnot made me cringe, but that said he wasn’t overtly racist, just a sign of the times and ignorance of white men in these times.

[Amy Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second Sigurd Olson book-loved it just as much as Listening Point! So intriguing to see his travels on the Churchill and what paddling trips were like 60 years ago-love his style-very readable, relatable, and full of history of the area he traveled!

[Joy Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite of Sig's books. Every time I read it I am transported to the north country. I can smell the scents of pine, water, and campfire intermingling and experience the joy of sharing time away with friends. I loved this book, I re-read it every year.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

whatever’s left of sigurd olson’s lonely land lives on in the moments of silence on wisconsin and minnesota’s lakes. The stars high in the sky above on a clear night. Sitting by a clear stream in the sun washing off a hard days hike or paddle. god i miss it.

[Jeremiah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely wonderful trip with the Bourgeois and his Voyageurs retracing the steps of Northwest Canadian explorers and fur traders. Great random find from Source Used Books!

[Tyler Howe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read, but really, really drags at times. Yes, this book put me to sleep more often than not. It is worth the read, however, for any canoeist.

[Rachel Wofford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable travelogue of a canoe trip with 6 men following the route of the French and British fur traders in Canada.