Early Warming

Two in the Far North

At the age of nine, Margaret Murie moved from Seattle to Fairbanks, not realizing the trajectory life would take her from there. This moving testimonial to the preservation of the Arctic wilderness comes straight from her heart as she writes about growing up in Fairbanks, becoming the first woman graduate of the University of Alaska, and meeting-and then marrying-noted biologist Olaus J. Murie. So begins her lifelong journey in Alaska and on to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where along with her husband and others they founded The Wilderness Society to protect nature and wildlife and speak out for ecological consciousness. From adventures of traversing over thin ice with dog sleds, camping in woods surrounded by bears, caribou, and other wildlife, to canoeing in streams with geese nearby, and more, Murie embraced nature as a close neighbor and dedicated her life to advocating for wilderness protection and conservation.

First published in 1962, this edition features a new foreword by Frances Beinecke and an afterword from Donald Murie. Margaret Murie inspires readers to join her in finding life, love, and adventure in the beautiful remote Alaskan wilderness and the natural world beyond.

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • "A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue."--The New York Times Book Review
  • Mya Dubois left Gauthier, Louisiana determined never to look back. Broadway gave her the career she dreamed of, but coming home means facing the one thing she cannot design her way around... the man who shattered her heart.
  • Rejected by her embittered mother and scorned by her classmates, Elnora Comstock seeks consolation in nature amid the wilds of eastern Indiana's Limberlost Swamp.
  • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.