Louise Arner Boyd is born in San Rafael, CA to John Franklin Boyd and Louise Arner Cook, owners and heirs to the Bodie Gold Bonanza of 1877.

Louise begins school with her two older brothers, Seth & John Jr. with Miss Stuart of San Rafael

Louise’s 16 year-old brother Seth dies of heart disease at their San Rafael home, and 7 months later, her brother John Jr. dies of the same disease while attending boarding school in Ventura County, CA

In memory of their sons, John Jr. and Seth, the Boyd family donates land and the Gate House to the City of San Rafael establishing Boyd Park. The dedication ceremony is attended by hundreds of San Rafael residents and public officials.

Louise is made President and Manager of the Boyd Investment Company by her father and begins to manage the family’s assets.

Louise travels to Europe with her parents where her interests in photography blossom after her father buys her first camera and arranges lessons with photography teacher to hone her skills.

Louise moves with her parents into their San Francisco home where both her mother and father die within 6 months of each other at the Adler Sanitarium on Polk Street

Louise travels to Europe honing her photography skills and developing a lifelong interest in the people and cultures of far-off lands. On a trip to Spitsbergen off the Norwegian coast she first sees the Polar Ice Pack and a life-long fascination and interest is born.

Louise contacts Isaiah Bowman, photographer and researcher for the American Geographical Society (AMG) and he accepts her as his pupil to learn photography and geography. The AMG would go on to publish her books on Polish Country-sides and The Coast of North-East Greenland each containing hundreds of original photographs.

Louise travels to Europe and is presented to the King & Queen of England, a rare honor for an unmarried American woman. She garners international notoriety when she charters the icebreaker, Hobby, and returns to the North Sea hunting Polar Bear and photographing all she sees. Papers worldwide dub her the "Arctic Diana." She also collects botanical specimens for friend, Alice Eastwood, the botanical curator of the California Academy of Sciences, the beginning of a life-long partnership between the explorer and famed botanist.

Louise sails to Norway for her second ‘expedition’ in the Hobby, but when she arrives arctic explorers Umberto Nobile and his dirigible crew are reported missing and famed explorer Roald Amundsen, looking for them in a seaplane, also is lost. Louise offers to help in the rescue effort and spends 3 months searching for Nobile and Amundsen with her crew of the Hobby. Amundsen and his plane are never found but Louise is given the chevalier cross of a Knight of St. Olaf from King Haakon of Norway for her courageous and selfless efforts.

Louise makes two trips to Greenland surveying, photographing and collecting botanical specimens, the second sponsored by the American Geographical Society (AMG). The expeditions visit every fiord and sound in the region of Franz Josef and King Oscar Fiords. Louise takes several thousand photographs illustrating the glaciers, sea ice, animal life, and flora. Louise also discovers a route between Kjerulf and Dickson Fiords that had never before been attempted. Lauge Koch, a leading Danish scientist would later name a piece of Greenland after Louise following her 1931 expedition.

Her long-time friend and mentor, Isaiah Bowman, encourages her appointment as the AMG’s delegate to the International Geographical Congress in Warsaw, Poland. Louise ships her large touring car and chauffeur to Poland and travels through the Polish Corridor, the Danzig Free State, and East Prussia with regional experts photographing and writing about everything and everyone she encounters. Her travel notes and photographs would later be published in book form by the AMG.

Louise publishes her, book The Coast of North-East Greenland, establishing herself worldwide as a leading expert on Greenland and Arctic Exploration

Louise publishes her second book by the AMG, Polish Country-sides a unique and valuable study of the rural Polish peasantry just before World War II changed the people and landscape forever.

Louise plans and completes her 4th and 5th voyages to the Arctic regions of Greenland traveling farther north than any previous American expedition. She would be photographing and surveying land that no other explorer had ever visited.

Now over 50 years old, Louise settled down to cataloging and arranging her expedition notes for publication and began renovating the family home at Maple Lawn. She became a trustee of Mills College, worked with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and organized the San Rafael chapter of the American Woman’s Volunteer Association. She also received The American Geographical Society’s highest award--the Cullum Geographical Medal which is inscribed, "The dauntless leader of scientific expeditions into the Arctic, she has captured the spirit of the polar world in photographs of rare beauty."

With the outbreak of World War II the AMG asked Louise to postpone the publishing her book about the 1937-38 expeditions fearing that they may provide valuable knowledge to Nazi Germany who had overrun Denmark and the Scandinavian countries. When Louise discovered that all her equipment from the 1937 and 1938 expeditions were behind enemy lines in Norway, she displayed the same kind of initiative and courage that characterized her exemplary life. She traveled to Norway by boat, now controlled by the Nazis, nominally protected by the United States’ neutral status. She located and packed her belongings on to a luxury liner and returned home. While on board, she met Dr. J. H. Dellinger, who was head of the radio section of the National Bureau of Standards. 

Dellinger recognized the unique knowledge and skill Louise possessed and asked her to help the government research and establish long-distance radio transmission stations in the Arctic. Louise did not hesitate. She chartered, financed and led an expedition that carried Bureau scientists and equipment. The five-month journey was a total success. Of this expedition Louise said, "I knew every inch and since the maps and photographs belonging to Denmark were in German hands, my memory and my own surveys were the only guides the Allies had."

Louise served as special consultant to the Military Intelligence Division from March 1942 to July 1943 for the annual salary of $1 per year. She was the first woman to volunteer her services in such a capacity. After the war the Army presented Louise with a the Certificate of Appreciation that read, "For outstanding patriotic service to the Army as a contributor of geographic knowledge and consultant."

Louise concentrated her relentless energy and enthusiasm into charity work and further renovating Maple Lawn. She supported the Arts, raising money for the Marin Music Chest and the San Francisco Foundation while working with the San Francisco Symphony and Ballet. During this time she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, The American Society of Photogrammetry and the American Geophysical Society. The AMG also published her 3rd book, The Coast of Northeast Greenland, based on her 1937-38 expeditions.

Ever the explorer and adventurer, Louise hired a plane to become the first woman to fly over the North Pole carrying the flag of the Society of Woman Geographers. Of this experience she wrote, “North, north, north we flew. Soon we left all land behind us…and as I saw the ocean change to massive fields of solid white, my heart leaped up. I knew we were approaching my goal. Then--in a moment of happiness, which I shall never forget--our instruments told me we were there. … I felt we had an invisible passenger--the Almighty… My Arctic dream had come true”.

In the spring of 1958 Louise embarked on a tour through Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Saigon, Bangkok, Cambodia, Kashmir, Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, and Turkey. She became the first member of the American Polar Society and the first woman to be elected to the governing body of the American Geographical Society. In the last few years of her life, her family fortune had dwindled and she had to sell Maple Lawn and the family’s Pacific Heights homes. In 1972, Louise Arner Boyd died of complications from intestinal cancer. Always the maverick, she chose not to be buried in the family plot in San Rafael but have her ashes scattered near Point Barrow, Alaska, the site of her last visit to Arctic regions.