 Both the Murie Residence and the STS Ranch provided accommodation for meetings of the Wilderness Society in 1953, and provided a base for writers and activists in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.Olaus Murie was responsible for landmark studies on caribou and their relationship to the environment in Alaska during the 1920s.He was joined by his younger brother Adolph in 1922, and met his future wife, Margaret "Mardy" Thomas in Fairbanks in 1924.