By Stacy K. Waltman
It was 1924 and they shared a love for each other and for a vast, untamed Alaska and her living creatures.
Dedicating their lives to the preservation of what little remote wilderness was left in the world, they taught others how to observe nature quietly and to breathe in the smallest details of majestic horizons.
He was a field naturalist, an enormously talented artist who had an uncanny knack for cooing animals to his side. So close that some called it magic ~ a Dr. Doolittle of sorts.
She was the first female graduate of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks earning a degree in business.
She had no training and little preparation for the life they would embark upon together as man and wife. Their journey as a united soul began at three o’clock in the morning, on August 19, 1924.
In a log chapel along the Yukon River in the small riverside village of Anvik, Alaska they married and became the Murie’s – Olaus and Mardy.
Their honeymoon and life adventures together formed in the arctic wilderness with seven Siberian huskies in a dogsled team which carried the newlyweds through blizzards and tough terrain as they studied the migration patterns of caribou.
At that point in history, it was widely believed by “civilized” people that the harsh wilderness was not a place for women. It was too harsh and women were too frail.
Mardy endured a lot of criticism for her lifestyle. When asked how she managed, she once answered, “When the trail was good at all, I’d stand on the sled handlebars; otherwise, I’d have to run next to the sled. And those Alaska dogs were so eager to get into harness and go, that you could hardly restrain them in the morning,” said Mardy Murie. “They would go so fast that I just had to hang on to this curved handlebar at the back of the sled, and sometimes my arm and my feet would be flying out behind somewhere!”
Averaging approximately 20 miles a day, their honeymoon sleigh ride covered over 550 miles of wilderness Alaskan territory.
Mardy and Olaus raised their family on the open land and when asked by other women, “My goodness, wasn’t it awfully hard raising children in the wilderness?” Mardy would answer,
“Think of all the things I didn’t have to do. I didn’t have to go to a bridge party. I didn’t have to wax the floor. I didn’t have to answer the telephone and I didn’t have to be on a social committee.”
For 39 years they shared a passion and commitment to the preservation of wilderness and worked side by side in wildlife research and conservation.
Both lovers wrote books on their various expeditions together and chronicled the natural flow of long-forgotten creatures and their patterns in life and death.
In 1956, George Schaller was one of three young biologists who assisted the Murie’s on one of their trek’s – this one through the remote northeastern section of the Brooks Range in arctic Alaska.
George Schaller’s 1956 report stated:
“Dr. Olaus Murie, intimately acquainted with the North Country, taught me in his quiet way to observe and appreciate many of the aspects of the wilderness which I had formally overlooked.
Mrs. Olaus Murie, or “Mardy” as she is known to everyone, with her charm and efficiency was largely responsible for the planning of our expedition, and it was through her efforts that we accomplished everything that we set out to do.
As a result of the 1956 trip to the Sheenjek, Mardy and Olaus as well as a lot of people, fought very hard to get the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge established.
We fight for the Refuge and for the last great wilderness in the United States.
I’ve traveled in many parts of the world, in the most remote wilderness, and I don’t think people in the United States realize what a treasure they have, because there is very little remote wilderness left in the world.
It is very hard to find a place that is virtually untouched, so the Refuge is really a treasure not just for the United States but for the world.”
With the help of others, Olaus and Mardy Murie continued their environmental quest for preservation by fostering the growth and development of The Wilderness Society.
For eight years The Wilderness Society championed the government to pass a wilderness bill, protecting some of Alaska ‘s prime and pristine land until eventually, in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act.
He did not taste the fruits of the legislative bill’s passage though because in September 1963, pioneer and conservationist Olaus Murie passed away. Undeterred from their joint vision though, wife Mardy continued their quest for wilderness conservation until the age of 99.
In adventure, her’s was a life less traveled.
On some nights, Mardy’s spirit was fired by the midnight sun. On others, her soul was powered by stars that rained down from a pitch black sky.
And then there were those nights when enchantment would take flight with the aurora’s seductive dance illuminating the sky in flashes of color.
She studied the quiet and small as well as the enormous and vast and found magic through eyes that saw more than most.
The drums of her ears vibrated to a cacophony of wilderness melodies sung by a symphony of creatures that performed for no one but themselves.
She allowed herself to drink in a world of harmony and reverence and sought to share her cup overflowing with a world yet unborn.
Mardy at 88 years old:
“So, what have I said? That we live in a precarious world; that we are threatened by man’s ingenuity; that we need a less consumptive lifestyle in order to preserve the beauty and grace of our world; and that our remaining wild places, our wilderness, have to be a most important element in all our thinking and all our doing.
I think if we saved every bit of designated wilderness it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy what I think should be the normal longings of a person to know what natural country looks like.
And I think just experiencing some fairly untouched country on our planet does something for a person’s mind and soul.”
Mardy at 99 years young:
“I love to lie awake a little while at night – listening to the quietness. Only the faint sound of the river. There it is, out there – a piece of natural world – river and forest and mountains and sky, and all the creatures, safely curled up or wandering about, according to their various natures.
I lie there and listen, and feel the nightness of it all.
There is something smooth, silky, and harmonious about the night, a blessing and a benison – not simply a gap between hurried activities.”
They were mavericks and the world has been blessed with the love and generosity of their vision.
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