The Quiet World_ Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 - Douglas Brinkley [271]
Once again, Olaus flew into Anchorage from Moose, Wyoming, to start working toward acceptance of the Arctic NWR. Osborn’s New York Zoological Society, along with its affiliate, the Conservation Foundation, financed Murie’s promotional and educational tour around Alaska. (Osborn also had his Conservation Foundation pay for a nine-minute film, Letter from the Brooks Range, which was narrated by Olaus and Mardy Murie.)40 Meanwhile, Olaus Murie’s little book A Field Guide to Animal Tracks, published in 1954, had become extremely popular with American outdoorsmen. That field guide—part of a series edited by Roger Tory Peterson for Houghton Mifflin—enabled Olaus to get interviews into which he slipped promotions for the Arctic NWR. Impressively, Murie had done all the intricate drawings of paw prints in Animal Tracks himself. From 1956 to 1960 a succession of radio interviews were set up for Olaus in Alaska so that he could discuss both his book and saving the Arctic NWR. Working in Olaus’s favor was the Inuit belief that nanook (the polar bear) had human intelligence—this anthropomorphic notion was the inspiration for a number of children’s books. Every souvenir shop in Anchorage or Fairbanks promoted the Arctic polar bears as lords of the last great wilderness. “The trip was evangelism, not adventure,” Mardy wrote, “Olaus was speaking and showing slides of the north country before every possible organization.”41
Olaus Murie struck paydirt when he lobbied the TVSA in Fairbanks for the second time. Never mentioning the issue of killing wolves, and refusing to grovel, Murie showed slides of caribou herds, white ptarmigan, and beautiful streams rich with grayling. Murie was subtly presenting The Wilderness Society’s plan for the Arctic NWR (“wilderness as wilderness”) with a few sportsmen’s provisions for mass “recreational use” that allowed non-airplane, non-helicopter hunting. That evening TVSA members voted on supporting the Arctic NWR, and Murie won, forty-three to five. Murie had been right to fight for the Arctic NWR on this level. As Mardy Murie later noted, her husband had “a natural ability” to deal with Alaskan outdoors types.42
With the TVSA on board, Rhode moved quickly with the “Suggested Plan of Administration of Regulations” (the first of many U.S. Fish and Wildlife withdrawal documents). Zahniser’s imprint—a lot of cunning legal work—was obvious in this initial document. Murie now met with the Alaska Federation of Women’s Clubs and three garden clubs. His slides of caribou on their spring migration (photos that did not show the swarms of mosquitoes) were awe-inspiring. Many of the clubwomen were fascinated to learn that caribou were the only deer in which both sexes grew antlers.43 They unhesitatingly signed the Arctic NWR resolution. Murie also procured the support of the Izaak Walton League’s influential Anchorage chapter. Momentum was building for the Arctic NWR. Rhode started receiving supportive letters from conservation-minded clubs all over the territory. Bob Marshall’s dream of a roadless Arctic was finally becoming reality.
Besides pushing for the Arctic NWR, wildlife enthusiasts, such as “Sea Otter” Jones in Cold Bay, were pushing hard for federal protection for the Kuskokwim and Izembek refuges (brackish wetlands that were extremely important for the Pacific black brant.44 Overseeing the Aleutian district for U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Jones wanted the federal government to better protect otters and birdlife. The word was that President Eisenhower, who was negotiating with twelve other nations a complicated international treaty not to develop Antarctica, thought Alaska, which was seeking statehood, might be a good place to create a few additional wildlife refuges to burnish his conservation legacy. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner thought