Trina Moyles finds solace living with bears in her new book

It was while living in the boreal forest as a fire lookout that Trina Moyles came to a realization about bears; the large creatures have a bad reputation, but you can learn to read their moods and reactions, making them more predictable than some people.

That isn’t to say she doesn’t understand the danger in getting close to the ubiquitous omnivores or misunderstanding their power, only that the bears she spent so much time around can be predictable in ways people aren’t, giving clear signals when they are agitated or simply milling about without a care. It’s a realization she writes about in her new book, Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, out Jan. 6.

Moyles documents her time as a fire lookout in Northern Alberta, scanning the horizon for signs of wildfire up in her tower. That time in the forest, long stretches spent by herself with her only connection to another human at the end of a radio or phone call, put her in close contact with a number of bears. She watched them grow from cubs to adults, showing their own offspring the places they have found over the years.

“The more you understand about bears, the less fearful you are,” Moyles says of her realization about bears. “You are respectful of what they are capable of but you also are able to learn to read their behaviour in more nuanced ways. You can recognize the difference between a relaxed encounter and when a bear is being more tense.”

Moyles grew up in Peace River, where her father was a wildlife biologist in the small resource town. When she was young, her father brought home a baby black bear, an early exposure to the animal that would spark an interest. It’s a connection to bears that would take another two decades to fully blossom.

Moyles started documenting her work as a fire lookout in Northern Alberta in her last book, Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest. Her new book picks up the thread a few years later, inheriting a fire tower closer to small communities at a lower elevation; a recipe that made it more attractive for wildlife, especially bears. The previous lookout at the tower was fond of the large neighbours and had not discouraged their presence.

“I was not prepared for how close they would be,” says Moyles. “The previous lookout was fond of them.I think a lot of Albertans have this idea that a bear that’s not afraid of people is a bear that we should be afraid of. And certainly I had that idea.”

But it’s an idea about bears that would slowly change as Moyles got to see them up close. She tried to scare away the bears using loud noises and bear spray, but slowly turned to acceptance and watched from a safe distance, allowing them to forage and interact in the shade of her tower. Moyles weaves research and interviews with bear experts into her personal experience, giving context to the behaviour she’s witnessing up close.

At the same time as she struggled with her relationship with the local wildlife, she also had a problematic relationship with her brother. They both grew up in the north but came to different outlooks on life, including the resource extraction industries in the north. Her brother also suffered from addiction, which Moyles attempted to insulate herself from.

The pair started to come back together later in life as her brother found a new strength and wanted Moyles to meet and grow with his own small family; he took his own life in 2022 just as the siblings were starting to find each other once again. Moyles says the book was her own effort to process her grief, trying to keep her brother alive through her writing and staying close to him in spirit.

That closeness led to another epiphany; her relationship with bears had an eerie similarity with her relationship with her brother. What was fear and distance became an understanding and appreciation.

“I realized I had misunderstood my brother and had misunderstood the bear. I had been afraid of my brother,” says Moyles. “The fear that always remained is that I would lose him again. I think people who are supporting loved ones or supporting loved ones, that’s always under the surface. I think this idea of fear felt very present, learning to live with bears and learning to live with my brother.”

Moyles considered separating the two stories, her up and down relationship with her brother and her up and down relationship with the wildlife near her lookout tower. But the dual story arcs came together to make something greater than the sum of their parts.

Moyles will be at a book launch for Black Bear at the Strathcona branch of the Edmonton Public Library, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m.; admission is free. For more information about the author, visit her website www.trinamoyles.com