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“What we do in this world matters; what can we leave behind that is beautiful?” Those are among the opening words in "Hearts & Bones," a lyric essay by nature writer Rick Bass published here as a Sierra digital exclusive. The line is classic Bass—communicating a sensitivity to the world as it is, and a clear-eyed and open-hearted idealism for the world as it could, and should, be.

In the summer of 2015, Bass traveled to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While there he experienced wonders that surprised him: A polar bear, far from the shores of the Arctic Ocean, traveling south overland. A pile of whale bones stacked up like Stonehenge. He flew over the parcel of ground that has been marked for oil and gas exploration, and marveled at its incongruity with the rest of that vast wilderness.

Bass writes: “We fly over the conflict zone, a much-contested, 1.5-million-acre section of land known, unimaginatively, as the 1002. That’s government-speak, all these decades later, for the crypt of tundra beneath which oil is believed to lurk. It’s an obvious misnomer, that geometrical, straight-line, mechanical signature of mankind in a landscape that is curved, sinuous, organic, unmanipulated, seething with life, and doing so very fine without us.”

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During his long career, novelist, essayist, and conservation activist Rick Bass has distinguished himself as one of the finest nature writers of his generation. He is the author of more than two dozen books, including the nonfiction titles The Ninemile Wolves , Why I Came West , and The Book of Yaak , and the novels Nashville Chrome and All the Land to Hold Us . He is the winner of the O. Henry Award and numerous Pushcart Prizes.

This digital exclusive is being offered as a thank you gift to Sierra Club supporters who belong to our Summit Circle, John Muir Society, and Wilderness Guardians program, or who are Life Members. We greatly appreciate your generosity.