The following was provided courtesy of The Murie Center.
Moose, WY, October 19, 2003 -- Having lived a life full of adventure and accomplishment, Mardy Murie died on Sunday, October 19, 2003, peacefully, in her cabin on the Murie Ranch in Moose, Wyoming. She had a passion for wild places expressed eloquently in her writing, her speeches and her testimony at hearings. Her steely resolve to protect wilderness belied her warm and welcoming personality and drew an unending stream of visitors to her home -- conservationists, scientists, school children and anyone else who wanted to come to talk, to discuss strategies, to learn.
Mardy Murie is certainly a mentor of mine. She is a woman who has exhibited -- through her marriage, her children, her writing, and her activism -- that a whole life is possible. Her commitment to relationships, both personal and wild, has fed, fueled, and inspired an entire conservation movement. She is our spiritual grandmother.
-- Terry Tempest Williams
Margaret Elizabeth Thomas was born in Seattle in 1902, but she grew up in the frontier town of Fairbanks, Alaska. She learned early how to deal with harsh winters and rough living, and she developed a love for the wild country beyond her home. Shortly after becoming the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska, she met a young biologist, Olaus Murie, who was studying the caribou for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, then known as the Biological Survey. They fell in love and were married in 1924 in a small church in a remote Alaskan village, and shortly thereafter, they embarked on a 550-mile honeymoon journey into the Arctic wilderness by boat and dogsled. From Olaus, Mardy gained a deeper understanding of the natural world, and she immersed herself in it. "Through every mile of the Koyokuk, Olaus was opening my mind and heart to the little-known, teeming, rich life going on in the trees and stream, in the mossy tundra, and in the grassy sloughs" (Two in the Far North). After that experience, the two of them agreed that theirs was a true partnership, and that Mardy would be at Olaus's side wherever his explorations took them.
For the next two decades Mardy and Olaus, often with their children, Martin, Joanne and Donald, made many trips into the wilderness of Alaska and the mountains surrounding Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Olaus had been sent to study the biology of North American elk. They built a house in the town of Jackson where Mardy became actively involved in the community. She served on the school board and campaigned to support education and the local library. She and Olaus loved to dance, and they helped organize dances for teenagers.
During World War II Mardy did volunteer work, grew a victory garden and managed a dude ranch, while Olaus served as superintendent of the hospital and studied the "coyote problem" in Yellowstone.
In 1944, Olaus retired from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service to serve as Director, later President, of The Wilderness Society. He and Mardy moved to a new home, formerly a dude ranch in Moose, Wyoming. They bought the ranch in partnership with Mardy's sister, Louise, and her husband, Olaus's brother Adolph, a National Park Service biologist. The Murie Ranch would become a center of the American conservation movement. In the book Wapiti Wilderness Mardy describes the guests who journeyed to the ranch:
Every conservationist or friend of a conservationist, every biologist or friend of a biologist who happens to be traveling through Jackson Hole will naturally come to call. We had the pleasure of entertaining scientists and students from Norway, Sweden, Finland, India, Kenya, France, England, New Zealand, Denmark, South Africa, Canada, and members of the United Nations Secretariat.
In 1956, Mardy embarked on a trip that would mark the beginning of an important transition in her life. Along with Olaus and young field biologists George Schaller, Brina Kessel, and Bob Krear, she traveled to the upper Sheenjek River on the south slope of the Brooks Range. It was this summer-long adventure that began the campaign to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mardy chronicles the trip in the later chapters of Two in the Far North, a book that has inspired countless people to travel to the Arctic and to fight for its protection. The designation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1960 was a major victory and a fitting high point in Olaus's and Mardy's lifelong partnership dedicated to the protection of wild places.
A second major victory was in the offing, the Wilderness Act. Howard Zahnhiser, Director of The Wilderness Society in Washington, Olaus and Mardy in Moose, and many others campaigned long and hard to get the bill through Congress. But when it was signed in 1964 neither Howard Zahnhiser, nor Olaus Murie, was still alive. When President Johnson signed the bill, it was Mardy Murie and Alice Zahnhiser who stood at his side.
Mardy worked for short periods of time for the Izaac Walton League, the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society, but she always returned to the home she loved, describing how, "the house just put its arms around me." From that house in the woods in Moose, Wyoming, Mardy began to shine, writing letters and articles, traveling to hearings, making speeches. She returned to Alaska to survey potential wilderness areas for the National Park Service and worked on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that was signed by President Carter in 1980. Her tireless efforts as a conservation advocate preserved some of the most important wilderness areas left on the planet.
Mardy received a great many awards and honors, including the Audubon Medal in 1980, the John Muir Award in 1983, and the Robert Marshall Conservation Award in 1986. She was made an Honorary Park Ranger by the National Park Service and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Alaska. In 1998 President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Nearing her 100th birthday in 2002, Mardy was honored with the J.N. Ding Darling Conservationist of the Year Award, the National Wildlife Federation's highest honor.
We owe much to the life's work of Mardy Murie, a pioneer of the environmental movement, who, with her husband Olaus, helped set the course of American conservation more then seventy years ago. Her passionate support for and compelling testimony on behalf of the Alaska Lands Act helped to ensure the legislation's passage and the protection of some of our most pristine lands; for her steadfast and inspiring efforts to safeguard America's wilderness for future generations, we honor Mardy Murie.
-- President William J. Clinton at the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony, 1998
But, for Mardy, her greatest rewards were the letters and phone calls; the personal visits from the people who had found inspiration, comfort and purpose in her work. Afternoon tea with cookies was a feature of Mardy's life, and she was most often sharing with family, friends and strangers. For the three decades after Olaus's death, the Murie Ranch continued to be a place of pilgrimage for conservationists, and the impact of Mardy's direct, personal approach can be measured in the astonishing number of people who recall time spent with her as a life-changing experience. Mardy, in her warm welcoming way, was quietly recruiting an army of conservationists, many of whom are now actively involved in wilderness preservation.
Mardy Murie, senior woman of the wilderness movement, has helped generations of men and women understand and then articulate their devotion to the work of preserving wild landscapes. She has a grandmother's poise, a lover's fire, a spouse's allegiance, a curandera's wariness about Congressional platitudes. When she is gone, the land will break down in tears.
-- Barry Lopez
Simply put, Mardy Murie is a national treasure. Her life has made a certain kind of life possible for the rest of us. Generations to come will feel her imprint, though they may not know it was how she lived her life that allowed them to witness some of the last wild places on Earth. They may not know that it is because of her life that their souls and spirits can be fed by what is natural and wild.
-- Robert Redford
In 1997, Mardy and Olaus's beloved home, the Murie Ranch, was declared a National Historic District. Rather than a monument to the past, Mardy wished her home to live on as a meeting place for those who are dedicated to conservation and for those who want to learn. To that end, the woods and meadows of the ranch now provide insights and inspiration to conservation leaders and students of all ages through the work of The Murie Center. The center inspires people to act mindfully on behalf of wild nature, carrying forward the values inherent in the Muries's teachings: respect for nature, the importance of wilderness and responsible action.
Mardy's strong belief in the value of wild places and her steadfast defense of them will be carried on by many. All who knew her will miss her humor, kindness and grace. Mardy's words at the end of Two in the Far North:
Do I dare to believe that one of my great-grandchildren may someday journey to the Sheenjek and still find the gray wolf trotting across the ice of Lobo Lake? Yes, I do still dare to believe!
Mardy is survived by her sister Louise "Weezy" Murie-MacLeod; and her three children, Martin, Joanne and Donald; nine grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.
Following a private family ceremony, a public memorial service is being planned by The Murie Center for later this year. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials and donations be made to The Murie Center, P.O. Box 399, Moose, Wyoming 83012.
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