Award-Winning Author, Journalist Releases New Book

Black Bear by Trina Moyles

January is the month black bear cubs are born.

Trina Moyles’ newest book, Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, is being released into the world as I write—on January 7 at her Edmonton Public Library book launch! 

Black Bear has already made the front page of the Washington Post’s book section in a review by Rachel Verona Cote entitled, “A Woman’s Life Among Black Bears Taught Her a Lot About Being Human.”

Trina moved to Peace River with her parents, Dave and Linda, and her brother, Brendan, in 1989. Lower West Peace was their home and playground. 

“I was five years old when I had my first encounter with a black bear. In the spring of 1990, my father, a wildlife biologist, brought home an orphaned three-month-old cub in a cardboard box…The cub’s head sprouted up out of the box and sniffed the air…My dad held the cub in his gloved hands and invited me and my brother to gently stroke her fur…To feel the warmth of a live bear, a creature that embodied the word WILD provoked an upwelling of wonder in me…”

[Excerpt from Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival printed with permission from Knopf Canada]

As a child roaming the shores of the Peace in the footsteps of her beloved older brother, Trina understood bears to be invisible entities—always present but mostly hidden.

After years of working for human rights organizations, Trina returned to Northern Alberta for a job as a fire tower lookout. Bears were alarmingly visible and plentiful. Over four summers, Trina began to move beyond fear to observe the extraordinary essence of the black bear.

Black Bear is an impassioned and eloquent story of grief and vision that captures the fragility of our relationships with human and non-human species alike, and the imperative to protect the wild—along with the people we hold closest.

Today, I eagerly downloaded the audiobook (read by Trina) and ordered a copy of the hardcover book. 

Trina’s work has been featured in several publications, including Canadian Geographic and The Narwhal. Her award-winning article about Caribou, “Herd Memory,” is featured in my Mother Earth book.

Trina’s previous books include Women Who Dig (2018) and Lookout: Love, Solitude, and searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest (2021).

Trina currently lives in a yurt in the Yukon. See trinamoyles.com for news of a spring hike and book launch in Peace River!

By Sharon Krushel | Photography submitted