Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival by Trina Moyles

Penguin Random House Canada, 2026.

This memoir of working in Northern Alberta as a fire lookout weaves the author's observations of black bears with her reflections on her own family ties, especially to her wildlife officer dad and oil sands-working brother. Her isolation, with only her dog for company, kept me on the page with her, as if I was her only human contact beyond periodic radio calls. Despite the caution from her predecessor at Hawk Tower to not "talk to the bears like I did," she becomes obsessed with the black bears who visit the area around her cabin and eventually considers one of them, Osa, as a kind of sister. Just as the author is relieved every spring when Osa reappears from her winter den, so is the reader when she finally leaves Hawk Tower to tell her story.

– Katherine Koller, Edmonton