In 1920, 31-year-old Olaus Murie headed to Alaska for the first of many memorable trips to a land he came to love so intensely. Already behind him were two expeditions to northern Canada's Hudson Bay, one to Labrador and eighteen months of Balloon Corps service during World War I. Olaus had no formal art training, only the encouragement of an eighth grade teacher and the desire to paint what he saw. But on this first trip to the territory, and on many more to come, along with Olaus went his notebooks, sketch pads and khaki bag of water colors and brushes. Olaus was a biologist for the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, now the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The following summer in Fairbanks, his friends, Alaska Pioneers Clara and Jess Rust, introduced Olaus to a college girl home for the summer. Two years later they were married, and for 39 years, Margaret Murie was at her husband's side helping record the wildlife of Alaska and Wyoming. Later, from 1946 until his death in 1963, Olaus headed The Wilderness Society championing the cause of conservation.