The Great Bear Rainforest sounds like the stuff of fantasy – a vast wilderness inhabited by creatures such as the Moksgm’ol, the Tsimshian name for the rare white spirit bear. But, as Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read show in The Salmon Bears, this is a very real, astonishing, and endangered place. 

The most notable feature of The Salmon Bears is the profusion of stunning photography from McAllister, the founding director of the Raincoast Conservation Society and Pacific Wild and a dedicated advocate for the protection of the B.C. rainforest and its wildlife. His images provide an intimate view of the bears in their natural environment. The Great Bear Rainforest ranges along the coast of B.C., from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaskan border, and much of it is difficult to access. But access is exactly what the book grants: there are cubs and their mothers, an adult grizzly with its salmon dinner, and a number of portraits of the spirit bear, one of the rarest creatures in the world. The book follows a year in the life of these rainforest bears, from the birth of the cubs in winter through to the hunt for salmon when the fish return in the fall.

The Salmon Bears is a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read. The text’s kid-friendly, informal tone helps steer the way through a mass of information that otherwise might be overwhelming. It’s brimming with fascinating facts, such as that mother bears will eat their cubs’ waste, that a spirit bear is actually a black bear with white fur, and that bears rub their scent on trees in order to keep track of each other.

The Salmon Bears shines a spotlight on a precious national treasure and makes an impassioned case for protecting its future.