For more than thirty years, Sigurd Olson served as a wilderness guide in the lakes and forests 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.
He is widely credited with the successful passage of the BWCA Wilderness Act, as well as the played major roles in the establishment and preservation of Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota, Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Point Reyes National Seashore in California.
