Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival

by Trina Moyles

For readers of Two Years in the Oil Sands and H Is for Hawk, a dazzling memoir about one woman's coexistence with bears in the boreal forest and a singular meditation on sibling loss.

When Trina Moyles was five years old, her father, a wildlife biologist known in Peace River as "the bear guy," brought home an orphaned black bear cub for a night before sending it to the Calgary Zoo. This brief but unforgettable encounter spurred Trina’s lifelong fascination with Ursus americanus—the most populous bear on the northern landscape, often considered a hindrance to human society. As a child roaming the shores of the Peace in the footsteps of her beloved older brother, Brendan, she understood bears to be invisible always present but mostly hidden and worthy of respect. Growing up during the oil boom of the 1990s, the threats in the siblings' hard-drinking resource town were more human, dividing them from a natural reverence for the land, and eventually, from each other.

After years of working for human rights organizations, Trina returned to northern Alberta for a job as a fire tower lookout, while Brendan worked in the oil sands, vulnerable to a boom-and-bust economy and substance addiction. In 2019, she was assigned to a tower in a wildlife corridor. Bears were alarmingly visible and plentiful there, wandering metres away on the other side of an electrified fence surrounding the tower. Over four summers, Trina begins to move beyond fear and observe the extraordinary essence of the maligned black bear—a keystone species who is as subject to the environmental consequences of the oil economy as humans. At the same time, she searches for common ground with Brendan on the land that bonded them.

Impassioned and eloquent, Black Bear is a story of grief and a vision of peaceful coexistence in a divided world. It captures the fragility of our relationships with human and nonhuman species alike, and the imperative to protect wild ecosystems, as well as the people we hold closest.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Nature, Audiobook, Canada, Biography Memoir, Book Club

336 pages, Hardcover

Published January 6, 2026

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moyles's third nonfiction work is intimate in its focus on her relationships with her late brother and with black bears, yet expansive as it surveys contemporary human–bear interactions and ponders fear, solitude, conflict, and loss. In her second year as a fire tower lookout, she began to recognize individual bears and give them names. The evolution of her attitude is evident from the language she used for the animals: in Year One, she wrote "its"; by Year Two, it was "her." Black Bear is so restrained and varied that I wouldn't define it only as a bereavement memoir. Its focus is wider; it's a clear-eyed nature book with a social conscience. Indeed, I most treasured Moyles's passion for the environment and explanations of how climate change will increase conflicts with wildlife.

See my full review at BookBrowse. (See also my related article on bears in Indigenous cultures and legends.)

[Amie Mak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a slow moving read but I did end up enjoying the book in the end. The way the author weaves together her observations of black bears with reflections on human nature felt thoughtful and deeply personal. Her writing creates space to slow down and reflect without pressure or heaviness.

[Mona · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating memoir, Trina is a lovely story teller, her honesty and ease in writing made this book a pleasure to read.
Trina is brave in so many levels. The book was heartfelt.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has written a beautiful memoir of her life, the relationship she had with her brother, and of living in nature where bears abound. Trina was fascinated early in life when her father, a biologist, brought home a small bear cub. She went on to spend years in Northern Alberta, working the fire towers and learning to live safely among the black bears in their territories. While she was tending to nature her brother worked the oil industry in Alberta...two opposing ideologies which created friction in their relationship.

Trina has a rich knowledge of black bears, and bears in general, and her belief that humans need to adapt to nature (not the other way around) should be thought about seriously by everyone. We owe wildlife and nature social responsibility and understanding if we want our world to thrive.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a beautiful memoir, and I learned a lot about black bears. the author lost her only brother, and I have not found many books about sibling grief specifically, which made this more impactful for me. would recommend

[Melissa Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful literary memory that turns what we know about our relationship with black bears - and about our relationships with those closest to us - on its head. I couldn’t put Black Bear down once I started; Trina’s writing gently pulled me from page to page. This is a book that will linger long after you turn the final page.

[Brad Irving · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moyles did a wonderful job tying together her experiences at Hawk Tower in northern AB, watching over the forest, in particular it's Black Bears, and her personal relationship with her brother.

Moyles speaks on the importance of boundaries, relationships, patience, coexistence and love. The connections made between nurturing Earth's ecosystems and nurturing your personal relationships, along with the vast array of expert opinions included, strengthened her work.

[Geraldine Giffen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It started slow…. Excellent read

[Darla]

🐻🐻🐻🐻

[Myla Hadley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The intertwining of themes flow really well.

[Laurie Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audio, and thanks to @libraFM for the copy.
The author reads the work and she does a great job.

I didn't know much about this going in, other than it was Canadian and about a brother and sister sibling pair. As someone who comes from a brother and sister sibling pair I love reading about that relationship.

But it is a lot more!
This memoir has a lot going on, but never too much, everything sort of ties back together.
It is about the province of Alberta, oil sands, and Indigenous relations.
It is about bears and nature.
It i about substance addiction and depression.

It is about being afraid to "break the peace" with your own family on differences of opinions.
It is a mediation on being okay with who you are.
And it is about grief.

A lovely and fulfilling, worth it memoir in which I learned a lot.

[Enchanted Prose · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.3
What we can learn from black bears (Peace River Region, Northern Alberta, Canada; 2020s to 2024, childhood memories since 1990s): Black Bear is a literary gift. For expanding our thinking on reshaping the patterns of our lives to discover new or renewed purpose. In ways we wouldn’t dare dream of.

Trina Moyles dares us to dream, even if not towards the isolated wilderness lifestyle she carves out for herself in a remote area in Northern Alberta, Canada. Where she not only “learned to live alone” but derived tremendous strength doing so. Taking enormous risks, she observed, researched, soul-searched, and wrote to find a “better way.” Maybe not your way, but wow how impressive and affecting.

Moyles is a multiple award-winning author and journalist who writes on ecological, environmental, and social justice issues for Canadian Geographic and elsewhere.

In Bear Country: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, she takes us inside the “world’s largest area of protected boreal forest” fighting for its own survival. For a good chunk of her story, she’s one of one hundred fire lookout workers watching, studying, and alerting all by herself during the warmer, drier seasons running from April through September. That means she also takes us intimately inside a place where some 40,000 black bears roam and make their home.

There’s a lot of remarkable phenomenon going on in this story exploring and juggling human and animal relationships: how humans and black bears can call the same place home, along with the highs and lows of a sibling bond with the author’s older brother Brendan. Once tight, then distancing, shattering, shifting, evolving.

Alberta’s fire detection tower system is the last of its kind in Canada. It serves as the first line of defense to protect a rare landscape that could become endangered by global warming, habitat loss, deforestation, and human harm. Contrary to what we might assume, black bears are not part of the problem. In fact, they’re protectors of the ecosystem, if only humans understood how to exist peacefully near them. Ironically, Moyles grew up in a small town called Peace River.

If you live in the US, you may have fallen within the red alerts warning of seriously unhealthy air pollution coming from wildfires that engulfed Canada and drifted in the winds. Moyles refers to these severe conditions as “zombie fires,” a wildlife term that describes how and why they develop and overwhelm. What a scary time to be monitoring fires in “Bear Country,” also threatening the wild animals she cared so deeply about.

At the same time, Alberta was experiencing a “boom and bust” oil and gas industry economy. When the “oil sands” (oil dense dirt) “left workers vulnerable to addiction and debt, and ultimately job insecurity.” The job Brendan worked in. Fourteen-hour shifts, away from family, enduring bare minimum industrial housing camps.

Fully aware of the “mental health risks” her brother faced, the author was scared for him when he lost his way; equally scared for herself when he lost control.

This is a story of emotionally complex conflicts. Between humans, humans living in a fragile landscape, and humans living near black bears who inhabit the land and have chosen to live in the vicinity of humans. Why? Also a story of how ethical and moral convictions bump up against personal ones. At what price?

An overriding question provoked is what getting along with black bears might mean for us? More than you’d imagine. Incorporating a wide-range of perspectives, including wildlife biology, ecology, psychology, Moyles shares lessons we can consider as to how we live our lives.

Peace River is also symbolic of the peace the thirty-nine-year-old author will find. The peace that kept eluding Brendan time and time again.

From a sister’s point of view: “Saying that we love wildlife” is not the same thing as living so closely with them. “What is it about being human and the need to be in the right?” “As if questioning ourselves is too dangerous an act.”

From a brother’s situation: Alcohol and drug addictions seen because Brendan couldn’t live in such isolation and had lost his childhood dreams.

Both worked relentlessly in two different, dangerous occupations with different types of risks. She became comforted by black bears; he torn apart by an industry with a strong “culture of drinking.”

Of the many things we learn about bears that applies to us is they “don’t rush through life.” That overused advice comes to mind – “stop and smell the roses.” We did during COVID, which heightens the isolation described.

Another lesson has to do with how humans can share “space” with black bears. How can we work “across conflict” in our conflicted world?

Black Bear comes with thirteen detailed pages of research references. I was especially drawn to comments by child psychologists calling “a child’s natural ability to see themselves as part of, rather than separate from” wild animals referred to as “naïve biology.”

And yet, it took a long while for Moyles to feel as fearless and affectionate to wild bears as her biologist father. Fascinated at age five when he brought home an abandoned bear cub that stayed in their basement overnight, and yet “fear began to take root in our small bodies and minds.” How that changes is at the root of the bear elements of her story.

Moyles spent an inordinate amount of time alone in the wilderness afraid of a mother bear who “habituated” near her cabin. Eventually, she comes to understand her behavior, her cubs, and other bears, seeing them as individuals, recognizing their markings and other characteristics. Remarkably, she no longer sees “problem” bears. Instead, being around them lessens her loneliness.

This doesn’t mean we won’t stop fearing bears, but the author’s turnaround provides a stark example of how humans can alter their entrenched attitudes and behaviors over time by jumping into the fray, outside their comfort zones. “The idea of a ‘bad bear” was solely a human construct,” she came to realize. Many of us may have lost hope people can change. Moyles shows us Yes We Can.

Mary Oliver’s poem “Lead,” the epigraph, captures how Black Bear creeps up on you and holes up inside you:

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”

[Mike Broderick · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked, I really, really liked, what I disliked, was annoying to me.

Let’s start with what I liked.
I loved learning about bears, I loved how her family has been involved with them and I loved the relationship she seemed to have with them.
I very much appreciated how she always reminded the reader that bears can be dangerous. Of course bears, in 99 percent of situations are not a threat to humans, but the 1 percent is a dangerous situation. That respect is important….especially for cityiot that just has to get a picture with wildlife. Our encroachment on bear habitat is the main reason for any negative interactions, is her assertion.
I thought that her bear memoir portion was a 10/10.

But, she tries to be much more. She also wanted this to be a memoir about her brother, his work in the oil fields and including his struggles. For the most part I liked this too. I think most people can relate in some way. I would rate that portion an 8/10

Connected to her brother was her attempt to push her environmental agenda. I can appreciate the conversations around oil and the environment…..however I have little patience for the conversation from people who rely upon oil and gas to survive (foreshadowing my likely conversation when I tackle the David Suzuki book). I would have loved for her to consistently connect Alberts oil to the health and population of bears in Alberta. She touches upon this, but mostly uses the book to negatively discuss the Alberta oil industry. Again, if the main purpose of the boom were this, with well articulated arguments about byte negative impacts and the pathway from oil, I can get behind that.
This portion would be a much lower rating.

[Meilee Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading books about outdoorsy women in nature is my favorite genre, and I enjoyed this one.

Trina Moyles shares her seasons as a fire lookout in a remote boreal forest and brings that world to life in a grounded way. I appreciated her descriptions of the bears and what it feels like to spend that much time in the wilderness. I could sense her learning their rhythms and adjusting her own.

I could picture the lookout tower, the long quiet days, and living out there with her dogs. She captures the subtle shift that happens over time in wild places, moving from alert and on guard to completely at home and relaxed.

I also appreciated the thread of family running through the book. She explores the balance between solo time in nature and time with the people you love.

When she writes about her brother’s suicide, she handles it gently and with care. The grief stays present without taking over the story. I got teary eyed in that section.

If you’re drawn to stories about women finding peace and clarity in remote landscapes, this is a good read.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartfelt memoir about a woman growing up in Alberta Canada, her confident older brothers, her biologist father and mother who fostered appreciation for the wildlife in the forests surrounding. She developed a keen interest in the environment and black bears which were plentiful in her area. While close during their childhood, her brother became more interested in partying after high school and began work in oil sand industry of Alberta, a male dominated industry known for its high paying, long day, multi-week, camp, hard living lifestyle. The industry is inherently damaging to the environment, ie, forests, rivers, and wildlife. The author explores the different lifestyles she and her brother have chosen and the challenges their relationship faces. Wonderful telling of her profound affinity for Black-bears and how they enrich her life.

[SnowDevil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book bounces back and forth between the author's troubled relationship with her older brother and his addiction, and her relationship with black bears around her and their life cycle. Personally, I found much of the sibling relationship parts of the book frustrating, particularly in the first half, when the author has not read much about addiction and is still in reactive mode. Even in the second half, it reads as if she's still figuring it out herself and doesn't know how to write about it - which is perfectly understandable, but didn't make for a good reading experience. The parts about the bears sometimes drag a little but are overall more enjoyable - especially reading little tidbits about their life cycles and their relationships with their cubs.

CW: alcohol abuse, drug abuse, suicide

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ This book is part nature writing and part memoir. Trina is a fire tower lookout in Alberta. Even having grown up with a wildlife biologist father who was known as “the bear guy” she is still not sure about the frequent visits by her brown and cinnamon neighbors to her remote wildland cabin early in her career. Over time she develops a relationship and eventually becomes a fierce protector of these bears. Alongside this story Trina describes her relationship with a brother who has drifted in and out of substance use disorder, has opposing political views, and a tough life working in the oil industry. I wanted to like this book more than I did. The storytelling just didn’t blow me away.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both a memoir of the author’s life living in Northern Alberta and an insightful view of black bears in the area amidst changing environmental concerns, I enjoyed the heartfelt prose. I was more interested in her take on the bears and surrounding natural forest despite threats from humans, but the family stories - particularly her relationship with her brother interwoven between her views from the fire lookout work together to convey the important message about animals and people alike. I’ll be picking up her previous book about the Lookout next as those scenes were particularly intriguing.

Thank you to Libro.fm and Knopf Canada for the Audiobook Listening Copy.

[Char Grell · Rating 4 out of 5]

15539 of 45K

I love bears. I loved this book. I live where the highest population of black bears are in Minnesota. I’ve chased them out of my yard, I’ve picked up the garage bags dragged into the woods and stepped in their scat in the woods trails. I know about bears. I do not know them by sight by markings which would be amazing. I was startled by the thing that happens (spoilers) I was not expecting that & made me suck in a breath. My life has been affected by the same & on several occasions. I related to the author, felt her love, pain and grief. What a gift to have experienced the bears 🐻

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Bear by Trina Moyles is a beautifully written memoir and thoughtful exploration of family relation0ships and the natural world. Trina spent months each year living in the wilds of Alberta's forests as a fire spotter, with almost the sole company of her dogs and the black bears she came to know and appreciate. We learn about her troubled relationship with her brother, the fraught issues of conservation versus the oil industry, the joys and hardships of her isolated lifestyle, and her growing understanding and love of the black bears whose faces and habits she came to know. The audiobook, read by Trina herself, was wonderful.

[Ashley Easingwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly one of the best books I have read. This memoir beautifully weaves the stories of bears and siblinghood together naturally. It is thought provoking, and written so well that you can almost smell the dandelions or coffee as you watch the bears, or sit at the kitchen table, together with the author. It is heartbreaking and hopeful, a balance that is hard to do well and Trina knocks it out of the park. This is one of those books that will live with you for a long time if you let it, I know it will for me.

[Crystal Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book with tears in my eyes and a need to hand it to everyone I know. Maybe my upbringing with a conservation officer grandad that raised a black bear cub along the boreal forest played a part. There are other pivotal life experiences that Trina and I share. But this book was beautiful and immersive. Full of insight, reflection and wisdom. I learned about the bears, but also about Trina, how to be with other sentient beings and the complexities of sharing our world with each other.

[Jquick99]

In the small thumbnail of this book in my Libby app, I see a pic of a black bear and it’s also the book title. Got the audiobook and I see it also has to do with sibling loss, grief and “environmental consequences of the oil economy” (unless you never use a product that has been transported or is made of plastic, your body has never been transported, only been heated and cooled by nature…don’t preach about how bad oil is).

Anyways…sent back my audiobook to get ebook so I can easily pass over sad sibling or preaching.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook. Narration was excellent. This book left me so sad. The plight of the bear doesn’t really stand a chance where man is involved. (Not just in Canada but also in the US as well. Florida recently had a bear hunt where they baited bears & used bows and arrows). Truly barbaric the way man thinks he is superior and owns the earth. I was also saddened by the story of her brother. I did enjoy learning about the bears and that part of her life.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not gonna lie. Trina is a friend. That said, I loved her book. It's about resource economics, her relationship with her brother, her relationship with nature and her fascination with bears. Trina is skilled at weaving together scientific fact with her personal narrative. She's also a beautiful and knowledgeable writer.

I read a lot of memoirs by friends, but this one made me feel shockingly close. I highly recommend this book.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir is an interesting look at family, ecology, and environmental issues related to resource extraction in the boreal forest biome. The first part of the memoir was about childhood and her brother's addiction. I really liked the time spent as a fire lookout with time for nature observations including the different bears that lived in the area. The strong middle and ending made up for the slow start for me in the beginning.

[Annika Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely, utterly remarkable. Trina is an incredible storyteller- I’m not sure I have ever been so captivated by a memoir. The book only gets better and better as it goes on. Her take on “these difficult ecological times”, the importance of family, the reality of being human and the need to care for our planet hit me deeply. This book is so important right now.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I close this book feeling like I’ve found additions to my family, in the author and our shared love and respect of family and wildlife. I’m grateful for what she has taught me about bears and look forward to sharing this book and my new understanding of bears with others. If only humans were respectful of each other and of all life.
This book worth far more than five stars.

[Tiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great memoir, and I know this really isn't the main point of it, but there were a lot of parts in this book that offer a very unique perspective on "would you rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear?"

[Sheree Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a study of bears. Family connections, dealing with current world stressors, suicide, aloneness & friendship connections.
This format-connecting wildlife science & humans- helps connect issues that are most often told separately & clinically rather than intertwined as it should be.