Customer Reviews

Two in the Far North

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Many of the best-known books about Alaska, its people and wilderness, have been written from an outsider's perspective (John McPhee, for example, or Joe McGinniss), with an outsider's sense of detachment and strangeness, as though what they were commenting on were just slightly odd on some level.

Margaret Murie (known as "Mardy"), gives as Alaska from a true insider's perspective, as one who grew up with it, knows it in her bones, and loves it the way we love our closest family.

Born in 1902, Mardy moved to Fairbanks at age 9, where kids went to school in -50F temperatures and where the only way in or out of Alaska in winter was on the back of a mail sled propelled by sled dogs. One of the first grads of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, she married the naturalist Olaus Murie and honeymooned in the Arctic. Over the years, fearless Mardy even took her infant children on expeditions into the wild.

The book is an indivisible combination of autobiography and nature writing. Murie has a remarkable eye; her descriptive powers rival McPhee's but her tone is more one of powerful affection rather than awe. My favorite story was of a young teenage Mardy, on her way to the Lower 48 to go to high school, catching the last mail sled out of town in the spring of 1918. This spring trip took many days; at each river crossing there was a possibility of not making it over the thinning ice.

What an adventure! Combined with that adventure is a powerful romance, the lifelong relationship between Olaus, a professional naturalist; Mardy, the fearless and intrepid companion; and Alaska herself.

Mardy Murie died only last year, at age 101. If you read this book, you will regret having just missed her; she deserves to be missed.

I, first, heard of Mardy Murie and her husband, Olaus, while watching John Denver's The Wildlife Concert. He wrote A Song For All Lovers for their deep and abiding love for each other and for the state of Alaska. The song's beauty gave rise to my curiousity. And, recently, while watching a documentary of Mardy's life, I became determined to read this book about her life.

This book is a must have. Mrs. Murie paints with words, a picture so vivid of Alaska's tundras and plains, that I felt as if I were part of it. The lifestyle was hard, but satisfying, and this woman's life was nothing short of fascinating. Mardy Murie is a living testament to the strength and beauty of women, and she leaves a shining example of what a woman can do. In her assistance in Olaus' work for the ANWR and other Alaskan Land Conservancies, to her carrying on of that work, she is a beacon to us all of what we can do.

Buy it...read it. You will fall in love with Alaska and with Mardy.

Mardy Murie is often referred to as "The Grandmother of American Conservation" and "The Grand Dame of the American Conservation movement, but somehow after reading her story, these titles barely seem adequate to describe such an incredible and personal woman. While we may liken Murie to women like Rachel Carson or Anna Botsford Comstock, Murie's journey is singular. We follow her from her childhood in Wyoming to graduation at the University of Alaska, through love, into the far reaches of the Alaskan North.
Murie successfully bridges the personal and the political, her own life and her life's work, her love for one man and her love for their work together. You will laugh with her, you will cry with her, feel scared for her, and come to love her. She will become your hero.
We must recognize Murie as an American treasure, but we must also recognize that Murie's inspiration is perhaps more important now than it ever was. The most obvious reason for this statement is the continuing struggle to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from growing oil interests. We must also recognize, however, that Murie could be the inspiration for the young generation of leaders in conservation-- a group of leaders that undoubtedly must include women. That there are very so few women leaders in conservation has caused the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women to recognize the struggle of women in their efforts to achieve leadership positions in the conservation movement. Other organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, and the National Wildlife Federation have launched campaigns to attract more women into leadership roles. The lack of women in environmental leadership reflects America's view of rugged individualism in our collective imagination...nowhere has this myth been more prominent than in the discussion of America's last frontier-- a very personal discussion for Ms. Murie.
Not only is Margaret E. Murie a woman in the conservation movement, but she is an American treasure with a very personal and very political story to tell. Even as she approaches her 101st birthday in August, she continues to speak out for Alaska's lands, peoples, and wildlife. Her story is not one of fame, comfort, or glory, but it is her American story. Mardy Murie will become your hero, your inspiration and your friend. Take the journey with her.

Margaret (Mardy) Murie (née Thomas) was a truly extraordinary person who lived for 101 years. This book is not really an autobiography although it is autobiographical, recounting her adventures in Alaska before she met Olaus, mainly with him, and then visits after his death. Anyone who has been to Alaska, is going to go, or has an interest in wilderness should read this book. Murie was a talented writer, leaving us an enjoyable legacy of vivid descriptions and, at the end, thoughtful reflections. Hang in there: this is a long review because the book is so worthy.

The Murie and Thomas families represent a one-two punch that must be highly unusual if not truly unique. Both Olaus and Mardy had sibs ten years their junior, brother Adolph Murie marrying sister Louise (Wheezy) Thomas, born 1912 and still living last I heard. Both wives were devoted outdoor enthusiasts who accompanied their eventually famous, field biologist husbands into the wilds of Alaska and elsewhere.

There are four major parts to Mardy's book, the first being when she came to Fairbanks at age nine. (At least one web site claims she was five, but that's not what she herself says.) Even today, one can get a sense of the town she describes for 1911. The streets are the same, the city having resisted tearing up downtown and instead forcing the shopping centers and other sprawl north of the Cheny River or south of the old town. Yes, there are now large hotels and an incredibly beautiful and absorbing visitor's center, but by and large the buildings remain modest. Some of the old cabins have been moved downtown and are occupied (with modern conveniences to be sure). The Masonic Lodge is still as Murie mentioned it, if a bit decrepit.

The railroad was coming and the old relay system of dog sleds and horse-drawn coaches came to an end. At age 15 Mardy was the last ever passenger on a perilous journey by dog sleds to meet her genetic father and half brother. In some ways this is the most exciting story of the book.

In the second major part she makes an incredible journey into wild Alaska to meet Olaus for their wedding in 1924, then setting off with him to study caribou in the drainage of the Koyukuk River. Alas, Coldfoot is no longer the "cluster of cabins" she found, but rather the major truck stop on the Dalton Highway, which parallels the trans-Alaska pipeline. Across the road is the modern interagency visitor's center, a joint venture of the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Nearby is an airstrip, home to Coyote Air run by Dirk Nickisch and his wife Danielle Tirrell -- both competent bush pilots and the kind of people Mardy Murie would have liked.

Less than 15 miles farther upriver is Wiseman, which has managed to maintain an updated version of the settlement Murie describes. A new post office was built, but the old one she saw has been preserved. The dance hall, where she had to dance for nine hours as one of the few women in town, is also still there. In fact, that is where I bought her book, as building is now the breakfast room of the charming Arctic Getaway B&B run by Berni and Uta Hicker -- again likable people of whom Murie would have approved.

The book's third part is about a 1926 trip to the far north on the Yukon border in order to band geese. Although I've never been there, the chapter resonates, bringing up my own memories of banding birds. The Muries had their new baby son along, reminding me of research camping trips when our sons were still babies. The Muries had it much tougher than any modern field biologist as their boat's motor broke irreparably, they suffered the worst mosquito infestation known to Alaskans, and they had gear that was primitive by our standards. My wife, incredible as she is, never had to face the hardships in the field so cheerfully borne by Mardy Murie.

Fast forward to 1956, after Olaus left government service and became head of the Wilderness Society. Cosponsored by three organizations and the University of Alaska, the expedition of the Muries and three other biologists were taken by bush plane to north of the divide in the Brooks Range, into an area then only proposed as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. How familiar to anyone who has camped anywhere along the north side of that vast east-west expanse of Alaska's major mountain range well above the Arctic Circle! Murie describes the wonderful world of miniature plants on the tundra, the rocky expanses separated by tiresome tussocks of muskeg, creeks and rivers, often serene lakes, towering mountains, large mammals, diverse bird life, and of course the changeable Arctic weather, which at times can be just plain dreadful.

At the end of the book there are two comparatively short additional parts about much of the aftermath: creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1960, a return to the Arctic in 1961, Mardy's activities following the death of Olaus in 1963, in the Rose Garden for President Johnson's singing of the Wilderness Act in 1967, her eloquent campaigning to keep the pipeline from changing the Alaskan lifestyle forever, and so on. I think she never mentions the honorary doctorate conferred upon her in 1976 by the University of Alaska. After the book was written, she received in 1998 the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the country. Mardy Murie died in 2003 at her home in Wyoming.

Read this book as a partial autobiography, or as a travelogue, or as an adventure story, or as a historical record, or as an enthusiastic celebration of wilderness, or just as an enjoyable "read" by a good writer.

A Naturalist in Alaska
Wapiti Wilderness
The Wolves of Mount McKinley
Journeys to the far North
Animal Tracks (Peterson Flashguides)
Wilderness Visionaries: Leopold, Thoreau, Muir, Olson, Murie, Service, Marshall, Rutstrum
Travels in Alaska

Margaret Murie was ahead of her time when she explored Alaska. I fell in love with my state all over again. She did what most people only dream of nowadays. I admire her for her courage and strength, both as a wife and mother and as an explorer and naturalist. She also explored ANWR before it became the refuge. Anyone with doubts about opening ANWR should read this book.

This is a great book written by one of Alaska's greatest naturalists and environmentalists, Margaret Murie. The book starts out as a memoir of her growing up in Fairbanks in the early 1900's. It then goes into her travels with her husband, Claus. Ms. Murie and her husband spent years in the Brooks Range of Alaska documenting its flora and fauna. The illustrations in the book are by Margaret's husband, Claus, and the writing is by Margaret. Margaret has also been a national treasure, having spent the last years of her life in Wyoming and putting aside land for an abiding land trust there.

This book documents Margaret and Claus's trips to the Brooks Range, their struggles, challenges and joys while there. They are some of the earliest people to go there other than the indigenous people.

This is a must-read book for anyone interested in alaska.

I lived in Alaska for 20 years and found this to be one of the best, first books I read when I moved there.

Well written essay of a life adventure in the wilds of ALASKA by devoted NATURE LOVERS---This is a must read book for Outdoor Enthusiasts !I sent a copy to my daughter& grand daughters--knowing that they would enjoy the experience of the writer & spouse and may experience a similar event.

I'd heard Margaret (Mardy) Murie's name in the same news and conversational circles as I'd hear names like John Muir, Barry Lopez, John McPhee - all among my favorite writers, scientists and naturalists - so when this book appeared in my stack of Christmas gifts this year I was really excited.

Over the last several months I've picked up several books set in the northernmost corners of the world, some of them truly incredible stories of frontier exploration, survival and human endurance - and Murie's book did not disappoint.

In Two in the Far North, Murie spends the first few chapters recounting her childhood in then-brand new Fairbanks, growing up in a modest cabin during winters that dipped, and often stayed, well into the -40s and -50s, and witnessing the growth of a burgeoning frontier town. Later, after graduating from the University of Alaska (she was the first woman ever to do so), she married Olaus Murie - a scientist studying the migration patterns of Caribou in remote northern Alaska. Together they set off for the Brooks Range to explore wildlife in areas like Bettles and Wiseman and the Old Crow River valley.

Murie is considered by many to be the grandmother of the conservation movement, and much of the passion she had for this territory that later translated into her advocacy for wilderness protection were born in the stories of this book.

This is perhaps the most inspiring and entertaining book I have read in years. Mardie Murie is to me the quintissential woman, a true feminist, and first female to graduate from the University of Alaska, who follows her own star while completely respecting the stars of others. Her prose is "luscious," intelligent, rich in imagry, and filled with honesty and joy. She writes about her life growing up in Alaska at the turn of the twentieth century, and how she transcends cold and harsh conditions to follow the love of her life, Dr. Murie, as he studies the caribou herds in Alaska's wilderness. She even finds breathtaking romance on this amazing life adventure, spreading her love of life and nature to everyone she encounters. I can't recommend this book enough!