A writer and conservationist, Murie championed preserving the wilds of Alaska. “Mardy”, as she was known, grew up in a log cabin in Alaska, and was the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska. She and her husband, Olaus, who was a biologist for the U.S. Biological Survey (the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), worked together doing biological surveys in Alaska, and pressed to preserve vast tracts there.
Their efforts resulted in President Dwight D. Eisenhower creating the eight million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1960, which President Jimmy Carter expanded in 1980. The Muries also campaigned to preserve wild lands nationwide. After her husband’s death in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson invited Murie to the White House to attend the signing of the Wilderness Act. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. Murie died October 19 at her Wyoming ranch. She was 101.