Reflections from the North Country by Sigurd F. Olson - BOOK REVIEW FIVE STARS

 

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS

Reflections from the North Country by Sigurd F. Olson

This philosophical masterpiece and compendium of insightful reflections is worthy of reading at a pace that gives the reader the time to absorb messages hidden within.

Sigurd Olson conveys his ponderous thoughtful persuasive messages in a joyful easy flowing style. I loved it.

EXCEPTS:

That became our theme song all the way. No matter what the adventure, and there were many, one of us would say, “I’ve been happier, but I can’t remember where.”

I have come to feel laughter and fun on the trails may be the secret of the joy of travel, as when one of my companions, Blaire Fraser, bellowed into an Arctic wind north of Great Slave a seaman’s ditty he loved: “Once I had a Spanish gal, and boy she was a dandy,” that song somehow took the bite out of the wind.

Intuition is different from instinct, the latter being a response to physical and physiological stimuli. When one is confronted with sudden danger, Adrenalin pours into the body in preparation for battle, flight, evasive action. When the hair rises on one’s neck and one is conscious of being followed or facing the unknown, reactions to such fears are instinctive.

Aces are born, not made. “We can train fine fliers,” he said, “but when the crunch comes, only those who act automatically survive to become aces.

I have seen horses hesitate before crossing a bridge they considered unsafe, have watched Indians skirt ice that looked perfectly solid to anyone else and have been with them when they sensed the coming of wind or storm, or an aura of impending doom.

Indians, woodsmen, farmers, and all those who spend their lives out-of-doors can smell the weather. This sense is not prompted by arthritic twinges or meteorological knowledge, but a certain something way down deep.

An old prospector friend of mine, Harry Moody, wrote me just before he died near Flin Flon, Manitoba, that we could sit across a fire from each other and carry on a conversation without saying a word. “I know what you think,” he said, “and you know what I think. It is enough just to be together sitting around a fire. We do not have to tell each other our thoughts or what we might be going to do.”

Wisdom is the key to a fuller life. If a richer one for me is enjoying my environment to the fullest, then it is up to me to cultivate my awareness of all I see.

Strangely enough there was a certain emptiness within me, and it was a long time before its full significance dawned. In a sense I matured during that moment of realization. Now I was an old-timer and could say “I’ve been to the Bay.” Someone said, “Do not take from any man his dream”; when a dream is gone, hope is gone, and life can become drab and without purpose. As long as a dream is ahead, there is always something to look forward to. No doubt that was the reason for the letdown when we came to the sea, but it was not long before I knew it was only the beginning of another dream: to see the Far North rivers of the Canadian shield. Eventually I did this, and found each realization was but an open door to another adventure. I remember so well the first time I saw the famed Athabasca after coming down the Fond du lac from Reindeer and Wollaston, the Athabasca I had read about in the journals of the fur trade, a three-hundred-mile sweep to Fort Chipewyan at its far western end, the place from which the Athabasca brigades came when heading for the Churchill and Grand Portage Post. Nor will I forget my first sight of the enormous reaches of Great Slave Lake with its countless islands, the gateway to the Coppermine River, the Thelon, and Great Bear Lake farther north; of the Great Bear River with its ninety-mile plunge to join the Mackenzie, the enormous waterway to the Arctic Sea, which the explorer Sir Alexander Mackenzie had thought was the way to the Northwest Passage and the Orient.

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