Mardy Murie and her legacy now belong to Wyoming history and to the history of the nation. She is rightfully considered the matriarch of the modern wilderness conservation movement. Her legacy as a conservation advocate - the wilderness she helped save - is now the nation's legacy.

For the past 60 years, she lived modestly in a log cabin within the Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole where she died on Oct. 19 at the age of 101.

Murie was the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. She and Olaus Murie spent their honeymoon on a caribou research expedition in Alaska's Brooks Range, which would later - partially through their tireless efforts - become part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

At age 78, she worked with President Carter to create the Alaska Lands Act, which set aside 54 million acres for national parks and national wildlife refuges. She also helped get the legislation passed in Congress.

In congressional testimony in support of the Alaska Lands legislation, Murie said: "I am testifying as an emotional woman and I would like to ask you, gentlemen, what's wrong with emotion? Beauty is a resource in and of itself. Alaska must be allowed to be Alaska, that is her greatest economy. I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by, or so poor she cannot afford to keep them."

President Carter personally thanked Mardy Murie in 1980 for her work, when he signed the Alaska Lands Act into law.

And in 1998, President Clinton presented Murie with the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the nation's highest civilian honor. In his presentation, Clinton reflected: "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."

But Mardy Murie didn't work for honors or awards. She worked passionately to preserve wilderness while such areas of pristine wilderness still existed. Memorials and honors are not her true legacy - the conservation of wilderness is.

If Murie's life's dedication inspires others to advocate conservation, that will be her true memorial - a legacy that will continue to grow and feed the spirit of future generations.