He disguised the fact well, but in truth Sigurd Olson (1899-1982) was an academic, however much he was best known in his day as a man of the wilderness, especially the northern wilderness of the "boundary waters" of northern Minnesota and western Ontario—the Quetico-Superior country. He was also an author who wrote a series of popular books on his life experience with the wilderness. Reflections from the North Country, published in 1976, is one of his last works, and in it readers begin to see more clearly the widely-read academic who over the years had worked out a personal theology wrapped around the idea of an "emergent God," which is a symbol of what humanity aspires for—that which is beyond knowing and definition.
In these reflections, Olson assesses his experience with northern wildernesses, how those experiences shaped him, and what they mean for him and for the whole human race. It is clear throughout Reflections from the North Country that for Olson life in the wilderness is essentially a spiritual experience. In the silence and beauty of the wild, Olson discovered a form of meditation that is natural and simple, one that doesn't rely on spiritualistic techniques or the technologies of elaborate forms of meditation. If Olson had a religion, it was the woods and waters of the North.
The antagonist of Reflections from the North Country is urban, technological, consumer-istic, noisy, self-indulgent, pollution-ridden, and irreverent modern technological society. Often in theology one describes God by exploring what God is not, and technological consumer society fulfills that spiritual function for Olson. What particularly concerns him is the way people live in modern society. They hurry, pay no attention, are tense and troubled, chase after superficial priorities, and live at a distance from nature and who they really are. Modern society and its anti-spiritual values are destroying the natural world that we depend upon for everything.
Nature, however, remains a powerful spiritual force that is able to transform the lives of those who are willing to submit themselves to the disciplines of wilderness living, if even only for a few days. Olson reports how men (never women) who travelled with him on canoe trips invariably began to relax, smile, slow down, and come quietly and happily alive in the course of their time in the wilderness. The interplay between wilderness as protagonist and modern society as antagonist thus lies at the heart of Reflections from the North Country. There is little good to be said for society, although it does provide us with the insights into the nature of the wilderness provided by science—and thereby places wilderness in its vast evolutionary setting. By the same token, there is little that is wrong with the wilderness. In it is found wisdom, silence, serenity, the discipline of fishing, and good eating. It is a place of unparalleled beauty; it is where we find meaning in life. In sum, "Wilderness can be appreciated only by contrast, and solitude understood only when we have been without it." (page 35).
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| Listening Point, Olson's cabin in the North Woods |
Everything that matters is at stake in the interplay of wilderness and the modern, technology-driven world. If we lose the wild, Olson was convinced, we lose our souls. The very future of the human race is put at risk.
Being in the wilderness was for Olson a spiritual experience, a mystical encounter. Quiet time spent watching a sunset, feeding squirrels, caring for the forest's trees and flowers, or just gazing intently at an ants' nest brings us peace. This was his form of meditation. He refers in Reflections from the North Country to the "great silence" that he experienced in the wild and to a sense of oneness that at times accompanied it. Once one has felt these things then, "...comes the search for the ultimate, which only knowledge of the earth, the universe, and man's relationship to it can bring." (page 56). Olson concludes Reflections from the North Country with a quick dip in the cold, clear waters of theological reflection. He speaks of listening to the wilderness with our inner senses of seeing and hearing, by which we discover our oneness with God's creation and may even experience communion with God. We need to understand that Olson's God is not the traditional one preached from church pulpits. He refers to the "emergent God," a shadowy divine reality that is as much symbol tied to the human spirit and revealed in our contemplative experiences with the wilderness as anything else. God is our goal and, somehow, also embedded in our human evolution. Olson believes that one day all of humanity will be united in its knowledge of this God that stands "beyond absurdity."
Twenty-first century readers will find some things about Olson's Reflections from the North Country "quaint" or irritating, depending on the reader. Writing in the 1970s, Olson does not avoid the use of sexist English. It is clear at various points, moreover, that his imagined readers were men, and his tone in a few places is even a bit "manful," for want of a better term. In more recent decades, furthermore, we are striving to think beyond simplistic dualisms, and to a degree Olson's contrast of wilderness and technological society is a rather simplistic dualism. Urban activists and those who thrive on city living are likely to find his attitudes objectionable and even arrogant. Olson also has a disdain for religious forms of meditation other than his own quiet contemplation of nature.
That being said, the core of this book is solid. It calls its readers to value creation and to see themselves as connected to the rapidly disappearing wilderness places of our planet. Reflections from the North Country is also simply written and without pretension. For those who love the wild this book is an excellent companion to their wilderness experience, giving that experience deeper meaning by placing it in a cosmic, evolutionary context. For this audience, Reflections from the North Country is as timely and even as inspiring today as it was for readers forty years ago. If you love the wild, I highly recommend this book to you.
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For further insights into Olson's spiritual approach to the wilderness, see David Backes, "The Land Beyond the Rim: Sigurd Olson's Wilderness Theology."
