About Margaret Murie
Margaret Elizabeth Thomas "Mardy" Murie (August 18, 1902 – October 19, 2003) was an American naturalist, writer, adventurer, and conservationist. Dubbed the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" by both the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, she helped in the passage of the Wilderness Act, and was instrumental in creating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She was the recipient of the Audubon Medal, the John Muir Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States. == Early life == Born Margaret Elizabeth Thomas on August 18, 1902 in Seattle, Washington, Murie moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, with her family when she was nine years old. She attended Reed College in Oregon for two years before transferring to Simmons College in Massachusetts for a year, then transferred to and became the first woman to graduate from the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines (now the University of Alaska Fairbanks); she graduated in 1924 with a degree in business administration. She met Olaus Murie in Fairbanks, and they married in 1924 at sunrise in Anvik, Alaska. From 1927 onward, the Muries were residents of Jackson, Wyoming, where Olaus studied ecology, specifically the elk population. Mardy worked side-by-side with Olaus in the field, studying elk, sheep and numerous other animals in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The couple would camp for weeks at a time in the wild, open valley of Jackson Hole. Olaus' primary goal was to identify pressures on the elk population, hoping to discern what was causing the startling population decrease in the area.
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