Margaret Murie was called “Grandmother of the conservation movement”. Murie was born in Seattle, Washington. After her parents divorced at a younger age, her mother remarried and moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. Murie upbringing up in a rural Alaskan cabin and her remoteness surroundings had a profound effect on her. She wrote of her experience in her memoir, “Two in the Far North”. Murie grew up dogsledded across frozen rivers, in the vast wilderness around her. Murie moved on to graduating from the University of Alaska, making her the 1st woman to graduate from the University. Later she met her husband Olaus Murie, a biologist and has the same passion as her, the love of the earth’s wilderness. They got married at a sunrise ceremony on the banks of the Yukon River, followed by a 500 plus mile expedition by steamboat and dogsled while her husband studied caribou along the Alaska’s Brooks Range on their honeymoon. They spend their journey together researching and protecting the wilderness. Murie accompanied her husband taking notes and working along with him and expanding the boundaries of national parks. They had three children which they took them on their journey along the way. In 1927, they moved to Wyoming to study elk. In 1956, Murie and her husband led an expedition to Alaska to study the wildlife. From there, they convinced President Dwight D. Eisenhower to establish the country’s 1st federally protected region to set aside 8 million acres as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Later in 1980, it expanded to 19 million acres. After her husband passed away in 1963, Murie took active control of his work and carry on his efforts. In 1964, Murie was summoned to the White House to witness the historical signing of the Wilderness Act by President Lyndon Johnson. She published two more memoirs, Wapiti Wilderness (1966) and Island Between (1977). In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act into Law, creating more than 100 million acres of protected wilderness in Alaska, one of the greatest preservation acts in U.S. history. Murie work leads her to victory awards and honors including the Audubon Medal (1980), John Muir Award (1983), Robert Marshall Conservation Award (1986), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1998).

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