Great Bear Adventures: True Tales from the Wild

Edith Fowke is a professor emeritus at York University and author of the
recently published Canadian Folklore: Perspectives on Canadian Culture.

This assortment of bear stories has a remarkable variety: tales by hunters, naturalists, and ordinary people, about brown bears, black bears, polar bears, and grizzlies, drawn from India, Greenland, Colorado, New Brunswick, New England, and many other localities. It begins with “Early Encounters” — the first by Lewis and Clark back in 1805, reminiscences of nineteenth-century encounters with bears in New Brunswick, and a brief description of the Indians’ attitude to bears. The largest section describes some exciting and often terrifying bear hunts under the heading “The War Between Man and Bear. “ A shorter section gives some amusing and touching anecdotes about “Captive and Domesticated Bears, “ and the last section portrays “Bears in the Wild.”

Probably the main attraction of the stories lies in the drama of their exciting encounters, but a more subtle aspect is also important — the way they throw light on the personalities of the bears. As the editor, Andy Russell, notes, “All bears are definite individuals, possessing unique characters.”

Many of the individual stories are fascinating; taken as a whole, however, they tend to become a bit repetitive. It is a book for dipping into from time to time rather than one to devour at a sitting.