Book About the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge published

We are proud to announce the publication of There's Only One: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by Vicki Milewski. This non-fiction book follows Vicki on one of her many journeys to Washington D.C. to lobby for Wilderness Protection of the coastal plain in the Refuge. Through insightful stories and narration, a behind the scenes view at a farm girl from Wisconsin's work to save a place she has never visited but knows in her heart should be protected as wilderness. The proximity of the coastal plain of the Refuge to the main American oil drilling apparatus called Prudhoe Bay means that oil drilling is a constant threat until this area is protected.

Selections from Vicki's art collection There's Only One run like another form of the narrative and bring home the ideas presented. Currently this book is in the Artist Book stage and has been produced in several different limited edition versions of 24 copies each. A larger run is being planned in a more traditional publication state

An excerpt:

Have you seen a million acres all in one glance? Tiny sections and dots disclosed on google earth don’t connect you to the sacred there. Have you seen a million acres in sweeping glances over photos, out of plane windows, in your imaginations? Or have you walked a million acres, found its soil on each shoe, a pebble lodged here reminding of a thin, muddy stream crossed, some twig clinging there to remind you of a tree you once sat beneath for shade during a clear skied, late July afternoon? Have you learned how to read each flower petal, dawn transparent and dusk dark colored, floating fragrance on a breeze transformed by a short rain or your shadow as you linger, studying its connection to more than the slight puddle formed around its stem? I have walked the same 80 acres learning a million acres is like a sweet glance from a weary farmer wondering if the heat will grow his corn or like my dirty hands in tie-dyed greens and browns that stretch out to let go and let life do its job in my garden. I have cleared brush, cut grass, tossed rocks and walked, walked, walked until I found each footstep, each toe hold; each arm swung all connecting me to sacred.