Bears

An Altitude Superguide

by Kevin Van Tighem

$22.95

Perhaps no other living creature captures the imagination of travellers and residents of the mountains. Bears are feared and yet revered by humankind for reasons that we may little understand, but Kevin Van Tighem’s thorough guide provides readers substantial knowledge of these animals. With literally a lifetime of experience in bear country, Van Tighem is an expert when it comes to the behaviour of these powerful omnivores, and while he does include several tales of near-death experiences and other close encounters of the ursine kind, he does not overstate the danger that bears represent in the mountain environment. Rather, and as you’d expect from a trained biologist, Van Tighem provides a balanced look at the role that bears play in the natural world, and in human interaction with it. 

Striking that careful equilibrium can be tricky, and a lesser writer might have rendered the material dry and difficult to read. Not Van Tighem, who keeps it short, concise and above all entertaining, throughout.

One particularly remarkable feature of ‘Bears’ is its versatility. It can easily be used as a field guide for the first-time visitor or long-term local who wants a few more details on why grizzlies act like they do come mating season, for example. But one of the more fantastic chapters in the entire guide is the first, on bears in human culture. 

Another major advantage of the guide (and this is true of all Altitude’s Superguides) is the attractive and differentiated layout. No mind-numbing reams of continuous text here, as the focus is on photos, boxes and short snippets of information. The way the material is presented lends itself to reading the guide in bits and pieces. Rare would be the case when a tourist has the opportunity to read anything cover-to-cover while travelling in and around Jasper, and having a guide like this is a blessing, because you can lose your place, turn to a random page, and find something interesting that requires little prior knowledge to effectively comprehend.

On the whole, ‘Bears’ contains more than meets the eye, and certainly more than this life-long mountain resident could have imagined when he first picked up this glossy guidebook. Don’t judge a book by its cover, and don’t go into bear country without Kevin Van Tighem’s tome.