Debbie Miller - Midnight Wilderness: Journeys in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Praise for Debbie Millers Midnight Wilderness:

Miller, a freelance writer and photographer, presents a timely plea for the preservation of the largest wilderness area in the United States, now threatened by oil and gas development. She describes vividly the wonders of this magnificent 19-million-acre preserve in Alaskas northeastern corner.

Publishers Weekly

Millers prose is lively and evocative, her perspective is insightful, her relationship to this arctic wildland is intense and inspiring.

Richard Nelson, author of The Island Within and the Alaska State Writer

Miller transmits Alaskas magnificence to the reader through vivid descriptions of immense vistas and fragile wildlife.

Booklist

Millers trips to the refuge are inspiring to those who dream of being truly alone and self-sufficient in the wild.

Tampa Tribune Times

Debbie Millers book, Midnight Wilderness, describes this large, isolated wilderness with lyric precision. It is an intimate, knowledgeable work. Former president Jimmy Carter read the book and was inspired to meet the author, visiting their camp during the Millers most recent trip to the refuge.

San Francisco Examiner

There can be few people who know this troubled and lovely land as well as Debbie Miller, and it is that gift of knowledge she brings with a seeing eye and feeling heart.

Wilderness Magazine

Midnight Wilderness is an unparalleled look at an area few Alaskans, and still fewer visitors, will ever see. The glimpse it provides makes us long to see the refuge for ourselves, and to hope it doesnt change before we get the chance.

Homer News

On foot and in a kayak, Miller explored more than 1,000 miles of this section of northeastern Alaska thats being threatened by oil exploration. Her book offers glimpses in the areas wilderness, wildlife, and recreational values that must be preserved for future generations.

Backpacker magazine

Debbie Millers account of her 1,000-mile exploration of Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is sure to grab the adventurer in all of us.

San Diego Tribune

There is some first-rate personal narrative throughout Midnight Wilderness. Miller brings the country to lifepeople and place, as well as politics and principles.

Bloomsbury Review

Miller has visited this wildlife sanctuary over a period of thirteen years. A naturalist, she witnesses wilderness firsthand. She takes time to appreciate what is there.

The Anchorage Times

After reading Midnight Wilderness, one is not only entertained but also extremely well-informed about this ecosystem on which millions of lives depend, including thousands of human lives. Her work is reminiscent of the nature writing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in noting all the interesting floral and wildlife events along a days march. Midnight Wilderness encourages reflection on the meaning of Earth itself, and in a lovely preface, Margaret Murie joins Miller in calling for the courage to protect the region, not only for future humanity but also for the sake of the land itself empty of technology and full of life.

John M. Kauffmann, in Alaskas Brooks Range

Midnight Wilderness is an eloquent argument for preservation; the authors love for this austere but beautiful realm is apparent on every page.

John A. Murray, in Western American Literature

Miller did not write these pages under the gun of current events, but rather under the charm of days spent wandering under a heavy pack across the Coastal Plain and through the Brooks Range. She writes: This is truly the most extraordinary of ancient birthplaces. There is something inherently special about places where humans and all members of the animal kingdom bear their young. Such places are looked to with reverence, renewal of spirit, and celebration of life . There is much to savor in Midnight Wilderness.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Midnight Wilderness is factually and beautifully written. Readers share the grandeur of Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Bridgeport Post (Connecticut)

MIDNIGHT
WILDERNESS

The moon rises over Arctic Village.

JOURNEYS IN ALASKAS
ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

DEBBIE S. MILLER

Foreword by Margaret E. Murie

2011 by Debbie S. Miller

All rights reserved

First edition, 1990. Second edition, 2000. Third edition, 2011.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover and Book Design: Jane Jeszeck
Layout: Emily Brooks Ford
Cartographer: Victoria Hand

All photographs by Debbie S. Miller unless otherwise noted

Cover photograph Michio Hoshino/Minden Pictures/National Geographic Stock

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Debbie S.

Midnight wilderness : journeys in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge / Debbie S. Miller ; foreword by Margaret E. Murie.

p. cm.

Originally published: San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, c1990.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-59485-633-4

1. Natural historyAlaskaArctic National Wildlife Refuge.

2. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Alaska)Description and travel.

3. Miller, Debbie S.TravelAlaskaArctic National Wildlife Refuge.

4. Wilderness areasAlaska. I. Title.

QH105.A4M53 2011

508.798dc22

2011008581

A portion of the royalties from sales of Midnight Wilderness will be donated to the Alaska Wilderness League, an organization that works to protect and preserve Alaskas wild lands, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-633-4

ISBN (epub edition): 978-1-59485-634-1

For those who believed in the dream of an Arctic Refuge and fought for it and for Robin and Casey and future generations of wilderness seekers

IVISHAK, OKPILAK, AICHILIK, KONGAKUT. These rivers have kept their Native names, and for me they have magic. Along these and six or seven more, Debbie and Dennis Miller through the years have hiked and climbed and kayaked over a thousand miles. They have stood on top of Mount Michelson and seen, as Debbie said in a letter to me, a spectacular view of mountains, coastal plain and Beaufort Sea, all in one far reaching glance.

Surely Debbie Miller is qualified to give us the story of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

On one of their first treks she and Dennis hiked for 150 milesstudying the plain (20 to 40 miles wide), the permafrost, the rivers, the foothills, the nesting habitats of millions of birds, the glaciers, the boreal forestand the Brooks Range which is the backdrop to a scene, an entity, a complete ecosystem, almost surely the only unit in North America of such matchless perfection.