THE INSTITUTE LOOKS TO THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS

By Alan Brew

In April 2022, the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute initiated a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary. Highlights of the celebration included a two-day environmental conference, and a series of twenty-six emails inspired by items found in the Institute’s archives.

Now, with the 50th anniversary celebration complete, the Institute is once again turning its full attention to promoting experiences of wildness and wonder in northern woods and waters and to protecting wildlands for current and future generations. To this end, the Institute continues to expand offerings for Northland College students through its Outdoor Pursuits program and for children and youth through its Youth Outreach Programs and educational programs of the Timber Wolf Alliance. In the coming year, the Institute will also expand program offerings at Forest Lodge on Lake Namekagon.

This summer, the Institute’s Outdoor Pursuits program will be partnering with the United States

Forest Service to offer a nine-day Forest Stewardship and Adventure program for rising sophomores at Northland College. For the first half of the program, participants will work with Forest Service personnel on trail building and ecological stewardship projects, and for the second half, they will have an opportunity to canoe on the Namekagon National Scenic River or to hike on the North Country National Scenic Trail.

The Institute is sponsoring a number of summer youth programs and renewing a long-standing partnership with Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to offer Apostle Islands School again in May of 2024.

In a founding document for the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, Sigurd Olson proposed that the guiding philosophy of the Institute “should be the enhancement of life in our beautiful northern region.” As the staff of the Institute live into the work of the present and look to the future, this philosophy continues to be an underpinning of the Institute’s mission and activities.