Amos Burg, Jr. was born in 1901 in Portland, Oregon. At age 15, he signed on as a bellboy on the passenger ship Rose City; by the end of World War I, he had sailed around the world and earned the rank of able seaman. In 1920, he traveled down the Snake and Columbia rivers by canoe, the first of many river voyages he would take in his life. In 1922, he traveled from Montana to New Orleans via the Yellowstone, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers. In late 1924, he canoed the entire length of the Columbia River.

In 1928, Burg traveled to Alaska, where he filmed the annual caribou migration. This trip was the basis of the article "Today on the Yukon Trail of 1898," which was published in National Geographic Magazine in 1930; it was the first of ten feature articles that Burg wrote for the magazine, and until the 1950s Burg worked as an assignment and freelance writer, photographer, and filmmaker for the National Geographic Society, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Erpi Classroom Films, Inc. This work included an expedition to Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego in South America; expeditions to Alaska, China, and Japan; and filming the coronation of Britain's King George VI. In 1938, Burg and Haldane "Buzz" Halstrom journeyed on the Green and Colorado rivers.

During World War II, Burg worked as an agent for the United States government in Argentina and Chile. After the war, he moved to Juneau, Alaska, where he worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from 1955 until his retirement in 1974. He produced 15 films during his tenure at the department, and both during his career and after retirement wrote the column "Campfire Reflections" in the department's magazine, "Alaska Fish Tails and Game Trails." He also wrote for Alaska newspapers under the pen name Sourdough Sam.

Burg married Carolyn Warren (1908-2000) in 1958. He died in 1986 in Juneau, Alaska, and had his ashes scattered over the Columbia River.

Sources: Obituary in the Daily Sitka Sentinel, June 16, 1986; articles in the Oregonian, 1924 and 1984-1986; collection materials; vital records on Ancestry.com.