for the wild through college and into his adventures across the Arctic world.
When Olaus met Margaret Thomas in Fairbanks he found a fellow nature lover. In their walks through the woods he introduced her to the multitude of various elements, large and small, that together produced the wondrous symphony of a functioning undisturbed ecosystem. He read the daily news found in tracks and markings; there where the trail of rabbit tracks end, two sweeps in the snow on either side show the signature of a swooping owl. He could bring the scenery alive; he had learned the language, and he shared it with Mardy, and later with eager schoolkids as well as adults. All through their lives Mardy and Olaus entertained a constant flow of visitors; scientists, conservationists, writers, artists, who came from every continent and all across the United States. They came to discuss problems, share discoveries, get advice, and be inspired.
When Olaus, at the end of his career with the Fish and Wildlife Service, made a speech to fellow scientists, he shocked them all by talking about spiritual values. He knew his familiar and beloved wilderness was not only a functioning habitat for myriad species, but an essential source of understanding and inspiration for human visitors. He said, “Wilderness is where we learn how the universe works.”
Olaus began his life in the natural world around Moorhead, Minnesota; he began his exploration of true wilderness in the Arctic and furthered his understanding of how it works, becoming a pioneer of the emerging science of ecology. He helped build a strong scientific foundation to guide conservation policies and efforts. He shared it all with Mardy, who used it in her own style after his death. Her fame has often overshadowed his. I know she would agree that this book should be reissued so more people could make his acquaintance. It’s an adventure, a good read, and an insight into the man who moved the conservation world. Two in the Far North is Mardy’s story; Journeys to the Far North is Olaus’s story.
PREFACE
by Margaret E. Murie
Olaus had hardly been sick or indisposed a day in his life when suddenly, at the age of sixty-four, he found himself facing a long hospitalization— more than a year, as it turned out. During the latter months, after he was past the critical period, he began to fill his days by reliving mentally his whole full, active life. One evening when I walked into his hospital room, he lay propped up on pillows smiling at me: “I’ve been up in Labrador all afternoon!”
That is how Olaus came to write this book. He early made an outline of the chapters and what he wanted the book to hold, but the chapters were not written in sequence. I think he did write about Hudson Bay first, but after that, he selected subjects in whatever order they came alive in his mind.
I know that Olaus felt much of his northern adventure had not been told in his many scientific reports. Though he referred to his early notes as he wrote, he often remarked that too many years had gone by before he had begun to put into his diaries his own feelings about the far places he visited. And it was his feelings about them and their people that he hoped to transmit in his book. I know he believed that one must feel about them before one can realize how vulnerable they are—how much in need of man’s protection as a necessary nourishment for his culture.
I am sure it was this strong, though perhaps wordless impulse that kept Olaus writing, a chapter now, a chapter then, during all the busy last nine years of his time here. Those years following his homecoming from the hospital were rich ones and full. Looking back now, I am amazed at all he accomplished. He was still director of The Wilderness Society, so there were many speaking engagements and hearings on wilderness matters; the Wilderness Bill was being agitated through Congress; the amount of mail we handled at our home in Moose, Wyoming, sometimes seemed unmanageable; and we went on two all-summer expeditions to the Brooks Range of Alaska. (As I recall, the chapter called “Flowers on Ice” was written in his notebook while he sat on a mossy bank above the Sheenjek River.) During these same years we were both working when we could on our joint-authorship venture, Wapiti Wilderness, which Olaus also illustrated. From time to time he would do illustrations for books by other authors as well.
In winter we could give attention to all of these things, except when we had to go off to some conference or hearing. But summer was a different tale, for then the world came to Jackson Hole and quite a bit of it to our door. Besides, the charms of the valley and the Tetons were constantly calling, “Come out! Come out!” Streams, lakes, forests, river bottoms, mountain slopes, and canyon trails were all to be savored again every summer.
But Olaus was one who used every moment, and his book continued to take shape. He seemed able to close off his surroundings and concentrate whenever a thought struck. I have memories of his sitting at a table under the back windows of the big living room at Moose, writing away while four, five, or seven children, grandchildren, and guests were conversing, playing cards, arguing over a crossword puzzle or a game of Scrabble. He could have gone into his study and closed the doors, but he seemed to find harmony and warmth in the midst of the people he loved.
Often Olaus would join in the conversation, and often it was about the Arctic—the chapter he was writing or the picture he was drawing. I remember particularly a lively argument about protective coloration. So in a subtle but real way, all the people who were close to Olaus have had a part in this book.
When Olaus was fourteen, his teacher Miss King called him aside as he was marching out with the other eighth-graders of Moorhead, Minnesota, on the last day of school. At first he thought he had done something wrong, but she said, “Olaus, I want you to promise me something—keep on drawing!” In those later years, when he was illustrating his own and others’ books both in pen and ink and in color, we wished that he could have found Miss King to thank her. Aside from that drawing class in grade school, he never had an art lesson. He just “kept on drawing.” Even before he was out of college, Olaus always carried drawing paper in the back of his field notebook and found things to sketch at every spare moment. By the time he began to think of a book about the Arctic, he had a wealth of sketches in the files to remind and inspire him.
I hope the readers of this book will enjoy traveling north with Olaus the scientist, the observer, the artist—above all, with Olaus the lover of nature and of his fellow men. To me, this book is more than anything an adventure narrative that portrays an era in the history of the Arctic, both Canadian and Alaskan, that is now gone and cannot be recaptured, an era that holds an authentic and worthy place in our history. I don’t think Olaus meant this to be any serious scientific treatise. He simply had an overwhelming desire to share with others his experience of the North. It was an experience difficult to repeat now, but I know that he cherished the hope that the young might still have opportunities for great adventure if only our society is wise enough to keep some of the great country in both Canada and Alaska empty of development and full of life.
PART I
EXPERIENCES IN THE ARCTIC
HUDSON BAY AND LABRADOR
Up to Great Whale River
The great opportunity came not long after my graduation from Pacific University, while I was working for the Oregon state naturalist William Finley. An expedition was going into the Far North—country where there were still blank spaces on the map. My friend Stanley Jewett had been asked to go but could not, and this gave me the opportunity to apply for his position as assistant.
In 1914 many of us young people were reading avidly about exploration in little-known regions and looking to the north for adventure. We often heard of the “jumping-off place,” where you left behind established means of living
