|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Mardy Murie
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| |
| |
Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Mardy Murie
Mardy Murie, Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards Ceremony, 1998
January 15, 1998
Remarks of President William J. Clinton
For Mardy Murie, wilderness is personal. She and her husband, Olaus, spent their honeymoon -- listen to this -- on a 550-mile dogsled expedition -- (laughter) -- through the Brooks Mountain Range of Alaska. Fitting for a couple whose love for each other was matched only by their love of nature. And they certainly must have known each other better after the trip was over. (laughter)
After her husband died, Mrs. Murie built on their five decades of work together. She became the prime mover in the creation of one of America's great national treasures, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and blazed trails for generations of conservationists.
Today, amidst the fir and spruce of the high Tetons, she shares her wisdom with everyone who passes by, from ordinary hikers to the President and First Lady, inspiring us all to conserve our pristine lands and preserve her glorious legacy.
Presidential Citation for Margaret E. Murie
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 than 70 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. A member of the governing council of The Wilderness Society, she also founded the Teton Science School to teach students of all ages the value of ecology. For her steadfast and inspiring efforts to safeguard America's wilderness for future generations, we honor Mardy.
August 18, 2002
Happy Birthday, Mardy Murie:
The Grandmother of Conservation Turns 100
"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."
- writer Barry Lopez, on Mardy Murie
The environmental movement in the United States is filled with heroines. From Jane Goodall to Rachel Carson to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, women have been stalwart leaders in the fight to save wild America. When the latter passed away in 1998, at 107, the mantle of ecology’s grand dame went to Margaret Murie. Known to friends as Mardy, and sometimes called the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” she turned 100-years-old on August 18.
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 recalls 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. The latter co-founded the Wilderness Society with Olaus, who served as the group’s president from 1945 to 1962.
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. Learn more about the film and accompanying book, Arctic Dance.
Happy Birthday, Mardy. For additional information visit The Murie Center The Murie Center inspires people to act mindfully on behalf of wild nature.
We explore the value of nature and its connection to the human spirit.
Conservation icon turns 101
By WHITNEY ROYSTER Star-Tribune correspondent Thursday, August 21, 2003
MOOSE -- Under skies filled with smoke from area forest fires, nearly 100 of Mardy Murie's closest friends came to Moose on Monday to celebrate her 101st birthday.
As a band played cowboy and bluegrass music, volunteers doled out ice cream and chocolate and vanilla birthday cake to those paying tribute to a woman some call the mother of the American Conservation Movement.
Ann Makley of Jackson called Murie her \'93hero.\'94
\'93She's a major inspiration in our lives,\'94 Makley said. \'93We think about our leaders\'85where's the next leader? Early on she had a vision and she stuck with it, and she's still living it 100 years later. She hasn't wavered at all.\'94
Murie still lives on the 77-acre Murie Ranch, now a part of Grand Teton National Park. Monday she sat on her front porch in a lilac-colored shirt with a blanket draped around her legs. Well-wishers stood in line \'96 as many as 10 people deep \'96 to say thank you to a woman who helped the conservation movement gain momentum.
Murie began her love affair with wilderness in 1924, when she embarked on a 550-mile dogsled and honeymoon trip with her husband, field biologist Olaus Murie. Their trip to the Brooks Range of Alaska would be the first of many. Mardy was 22.
By the time World War II began, Mardy Murie was 37, and as the country endured the McCarthy hearings, Mardy endured her 51st birthday.
In 1956, at age 55, Murie traveled to the upper Sheenjek River on the south slope of the Brooks Range with other field biologists, including her husband. This summer-long adventure began the process to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and she chronicled the journey in her book, \'93Two in the Far North.\'94 In 1960, the area was deemed a refuge after her book circulated through Washington, D.C.
During this time, the Muries worked on legislation called The Wilderness Act, which was signed into law by President Johnson in 1964. Olaus died just before it became law.
The Act's purpose is \'93to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition.\'94 Mardy was 62.
When Americans landed on the moon Mardy Murie was 67, and still fighting for protection of wild spaces, by writing and speaking. She worked with President Carter to create the Alaska Lands Act, which put aside millions of acres for national parks and national wildlife refuges \'96 at age 78.
When the Berlin Wall came down, Murie was 87, and she had received three of the five conservation awards she would receive \'96 including the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded when Murie was 96.
Louise Murie MacLeod bought the Murie Ranch with her half-sister, Mardy, and their husbands Adolph and Olaus Murie. Just 10 years Mardy's junior, Louise enjoyed the birthday with cake and ice cream on Monday.
\'93We had some very good years here at the ranch,\'94 Murie MacLeod remembered. \'93It's a thrill that a lot of people have come out here to enjoy the ranch, to remember what it means.\'94
Murie MacLeod shrugged off the suggestion people were paying tribute to the work she and her family had done for the conservation movement, at a time when living in wild places was much harder than it is today.
\'93We never thought it was difficult,\'94 she said. \'93We had to carry fresh groceries in on pack sacks on skis. I suppose it was harder than in today's world.\'94
Even people 93 years Mardy's junior came for the festivities.
\'93She so special she's still allowed to live in the park,\'94 Mattie Sollee, 8, said.
As much as everyone appreciates all that Mardy Murie has done, there is still talk of progress.
\'93She still thinks there's things to be done,\'94 visitor Makley said, \'93and she's 101 years old.\'94
|
|
|
|
|
|
Medal History
