The six-sto­ry Boe­ing IMAX The­ater screen at our Pacif­ic Sci­ence Cen­ter was filled by the vast, thou­sand-mile migra­tion of 115,000 ani­mals of the Por­cu­pine Cari­bou Herd in Alaska’s Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge, a land­scape once regret­tably described as “flat white noth­ing­ness” by Unit­ed States Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Gale Nor­ton dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of George W. Bush.

The Pacif­ic Sci­ence Cen­ter’s Boe­ing IMAX The­ater, viewed from near the Space Nee­dle, where Braid­ed Riv­er screened The Arc­tic. (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

The cam­era lens has been con­ser­va­tion­ists’ equal­iz­ing weapon in a decades-long strug­gle to keep the Refuge from falling into the clutch­es of Big Oil.

A fif­teen-year-old non­prof­it pub­lish­er named Braid­ed Riv­er, an off­shoot of Moun­taineers Books, has stirred the public’s con­scious­ness, first with the book “Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge: Sea­sons of Life and Land,” and more recent­ly on the big screen “The Arc­tic: Our Last Great Wilder­ness.”

Braid­ed Riv­er has also cel­e­brat­ed the salmon as a life-giv­ing resource in Alas­ka, with a book “The Salmon Way” and an exhib­it of pho­tog­ra­ph­er Amy Gulick’s work at the Seat­tle Aquar­i­um. It has focused on rapid, alarm­ing melt­ing of per­mafrost in the Arc­tic (“The Big Thaw”) and the Northwest’s crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered moun­tain cari­bou (“Cari­bou Rainforest”).

A Braid­ed Riv­er Sol­stice Bash, last week at the Sci­ence Cen­ter, put the focus on peo­ple who have turned out these remark­able works.

It was host­ed by the publisher’s cre­ator-chief exec­u­tive Helen Churil­lo, phil­an­thropist Tom Cam­pi­on – whose Cam­pi­on Advo­ca­cy Fund under­wrote the film — and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Flo­ri­an Schulz, whose lens­es have cap­tured gray whales in the Pacif­ic, griz­zly bears in the Rock­ies, and musk oxen in the Arctic.

These folks are play­ing a long game. So often, nowa­days, the word “demand” is fea­tured in pro­gres­sives’ advo­ca­cy. Impa­tience leads to strate­gic mistakes.

On many fronts, how­ev­er, copi­ous per­sua­sion is required.

The Arc­tic is a case in point, long viewed as a land­scape suit­able only for exploita­tion, to open pit mines and oil drilling platforms.

The U.S. For­est Ser­vice long saw South­east Alaska’s 16.7‑million-acre Ton­gass Nation­al For­est as a sup­pli­er of old growth trees to pulp mills in Ketchikan and Sit­ka. (A third was planned for Juneau.)

Con­ser­va­tion­ist Tom Cam­pi­on speak­ing before the screen­ing of The Arc­tic — Our Last Great Wilder­ness (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

I met Tom Cam­pi­on a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry ago, part of a rain-drenched Pilchuck Audubon Soci­ety pick­et line out­side a fundrais­er fea­tur­ing then-House Speak­er Newt Gin­grich. It seemed an unusu­al venue for the co-founder of Zumiez, a vast­ly pop­u­lar young peo­ples’ clothing/gear out­let that sells more skate­boards and snow­boards than any­body else.

He’s done well, and (with wife Sonya) done a great deal of good, includ­ing sup­port­ing the work of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute.

A gal­va­niz­ing episode, two decades ago, was Sub­hankar Banerjee’s book on the Arc­tic Refuge. The young Boe­ing employ­ee cat­a­logued life in the Refuge, includ­ing the dead of win­ter. Sen­a­tor Bar­bara Box­er, D‑California, erect­ed easels on the Sen­ate floor, using Banerjee’s pho­tos to argue against open­ing the Coastal Plain of the Refuge to oil drilling.

Retal­i­a­tion was swift. The Smith­son­ian scaled back an exhib­it from the book. Banerjee’s pic­tures dec­o­rat­ed a cor­ri­dor lead­ing to a load­ing dock. Mes­sages, includ­ing words of ex-Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter, were delet­ed. The reac­tion was more swift: Muse­ums around the coun­try booked exhibits from the Refuge.

Cam­pi­on start­ed tak­ing polit­i­cal fig­ures to and show­ing films about the Refuge. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell spied both a wolver­ine and bar­ren ground griz­zly bear through a spot­ting scope. For­mer Pres­i­dent Carter paid a vis­it, ignit­ing denun­ci­a­tions from Alaska’s drill-baby-drill politicians.

Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer has seen Schulz’s film.

I drove around the south­ern Selkirks, in north Ida­ho and British Colum­bia, with Flo­ri­an Schultz in 2002. The young Ger­man pho­tog­ra­ph­er, whose moun­tains at home are devel­oped and orga­nized, fell in love with the wide open spaces of North Amer­i­ca. With his book “Free­dom to Roam,” Flo­ri­an made the case for wildlife cor­ri­dors up and down the Rock­ies, to pre­vent the iso­la­tion of pop­u­la­tions of birds and mammals.

Braid­ed Riv­er sup­port­ers lis­ten to Tom Cam­pi­on field ques­tions about the ongo­ing effort to pro­tect the Arc­tic Refuge (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Cam­pi­on has nur­tured Schulz, from ear­ly day repairs to both Florian’s Volk­swa­gen bus and his bad back, nowa­days to the bush planes used in pho­tograph­ing the Por­cu­pine Cari­bou Herd.

Helen Churil­lo, at Braid­ed Riv­er, has help spot­light­ed such tal­ent as pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Kazlows­ki, who chron­i­cles the life of polar bears, and sci­ence scribe Eric Scigliano, who immersed him­self in Siberia writ­ing The Big Thaw.

Cer­tain Braid­ed Riv­er books are joy­ous­ly celebratory.

An exam­ple: Paul Bannick’s “The Owl and the Wood­peck­er,” and Bannick’s sub­se­quent study of Great Snowy Owls. At hol­i­day sea­son, Bannick’s owl books make for a gift that is intel­li­gent but also entrances young readers.

The Arc­tic Refuge has sur­vived peri­ods of great danger.

With heavy lob­by­ing by Big Oil, the first Bush admin­is­tra­tion was on the cusp of get­ting Con­gress to allow drilling. Then the tanker Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef and fouled Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Near­ly thir­ty years lat­er, a back­door pro­vi­sion was slipped into the 2017 Trump tax scam bill to cre­ate a legal path to drilling. (Cantwell tried to remove it, and lost in the Sen­ate on a 52–48 vote.)

The Trump regime rushed to sell oil leas­es just before leav­ing office. Sur­prise! Major oil com­pa­nies did not bid, mind­ful of pub­lic oppo­si­tion and the prospect of years of law­suits. One small firm that did bid has since pulled out. The Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion has declared a mora­to­ri­um on lease development.

A sub­stan­tial polit­i­cal donor, Tom Cam­pi­on was able to break bread recent­ly with Pres­i­dent Biden. He used the time to lob­by against the Wil­low Project, a major oil devel­op­ment pro­posed by Cono­co-Phillips just west of Prud­hoe Bay.

With ris­ing gas prices, the oil indus­try and Repub­li­cans in Con­gress have again tak­en up Sarah Palin’s cry of “Drill, baby, drill.” No mat­ter that oil com­pa­nies are sit­ting on thou­sands of leas­es that they haven’t devel­oped. Or that the Key­stone Pipeline was designed to trans­port dirty Alber­ta oil to the Gulf Coast for export.

The drilling mes­sage is drilled home dai­ly by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, R‑Washington, who stands to chair the pow­er­ful House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee, should Repub­li­cans regain con­trol this November.

The strug­gle to pro­tect wild places will go on.

As the late Sier­ra Club leader David Brow­er observed, con­ser­va­tion­ists can­not afford to lose even once. I’ve raft­ed the Can­ning Riv­er, which marks the west­ern bound­ary of the Arc­tic Refuge. On the west side, aban­doned rusty oil drums, years-old vehi­cle tracks on the tun­dra. Oil explo­ration would bring drilling plat­forms, haul roads and pipelines to the “last great wilderness.”

Here’s wish­ing a hap­py anniver­sary and long life to Braid­ed Riv­er. It is the cre­ation of folks with music in their souls. Its books and exhibits change minds.