Margaret Murie, known to many as the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” passed away yesterday at her home in Moose, Wyoming, at the age of 101. A passionate advocate for wild places and a prolific writer, “Mardy” played a critical role in protecting America's most cherished wilderness lands and inspired generations of conservationists.
“No one embodied the spirit of wild America more than Mardy Murie,” said
Bruce Hamilton, Sierra Club Conservation Director. “Her life was dedicated
to giving voice to the wild places and creatures that had no vote in our
political process. She carried on the grand tradition established by
Sierra Club founder John Muir for her entire life, and now new generations
of wilderness advocates must pick up the torch that she has passed to us.”
Mardy was born in Seattle, but moved to Alaska at a young age. In 1924 she
became the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska in
Fairbanks. In that year, she married naturalist Olaus Murie – then with the
U.S. Biological Survey – and the duo promptly departed on a caribou
research expedition, mushing their way across the Brooks Range and Arctic
Wildlife Range. The story of that wilderness honeymoon is told in Murie's
book, “Two in the Far North,” a classic account based on her journals.
Mardy recalled that one of the only times she saw her husband cry was years
later when word arrived that the Arctic Wildlife Range of their honeymoon
would be made the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Two years after their Arctic adventure, Olaus and Mardy moved to Wyoming to
study elk. They built a cabin in Jackson Hole where Mardy still lives.
There the two fell in with like-minded conservationists and were
inspirational to such figures as David Brower and Howard Zahniser.
Sadly, Olaus died in 1963, just months before the Wilderness Act was
signed. Mardy carried on, however, eventually testifying on behalf of the
Alaska Lands Act of 1980, pleading with lawmakers to “allow Alaska to be
different, to be herself, to nourish our souls.”
Her activism has been widely recognized. At the signing of the Alaska Lands
Act, Murie was personally commended by then-President Jimmy Carter. Three
years later, she was awarded the Sierra Club's John Muir Award. And in
1998, former President Bill Clinton bestowed upon her the Medal of Freedom
for her tireless dedication to the cause of preserving Nature – what she
once called “omnipotence at work.”
Mardy's life is the subject of a highly acclaimed documentary, “Arctic
Dance: The Mardy Murie Story,” a Sierra Club presentation by Wyoming
filmmaker Bonnie Kreps, co-produced with Charlie Craighead.
The writer Barry Lopez once wrote of Mardy Murie: “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.”
