Note: This interview was originally published on Audible.ca.
In her new memoir, Black Bear, writer Trina Moyles invites listeners to reconsider their preconceived judgements or fears about Ursus americanus, offering a glimpse of the Earth not as something claimed but of something shared. All the while, she links these thoughts on coexistence and life's myriad complexities to her connection with her late brother, crafting a meditation on grief, relationships, and wild spaces that's as tender as it is timely. In this conversation, Moyles shared—in her own voice—the process of writing and recording stories both animal and human, her hope for common ground, and a few of her personal favorite audiobooks. She also shared breathtaking videos she'd captured of black bears, images that underscore their tremendous beauty and spirit.
Alanna McAuliffe: Black Bear is at once a story of tremendous loss and grief and a nuanced love letter to the creatures we share this planet with. Why did now feel like the right time to tell your brother’s story, and what inspired you to intertwine it with your encounters with Alberta’s black bears?
Trina Moyles: I decided to write Black Bear because we're living in this time of great ecological and social and political division. And the story really was inspired about my relationship of learning to live along black bears, who gave me the confidence to examine my relationship with my own brother as well and the ways that I was trying to search for common ground in our relationship as siblings. So, I think the book is timely right now because it's a story of trying to heal divides and make sense of division in our attempts to relate and have empathy for one another.
"We're living in this time of great ecological and social and political division..."
Trina Moyles on Black Bear
The wild spaces of Alberta (and the wide-ranging effects of the oil industry on the province) are characters in their own right in your writing. What did you want to convey about your home, its habitants, and that which threatens them (human, animal, and environment alike) in your narrative?
This story is set in my hometown in Northern Alberta, but I really feel like it reflects the experience of communities everywhere, especially those that are living with wildlife and also dealing with implications of resource extraction industries. I wanted to try to unpack the stereotypes that people have about these places through the book. And then also to ask the question of risk. What is really the risk that people face living in bear country or in the presence of wildlife? Is it wildlife themselves or is it also some of the implications from isolation, substance abuse, addiction, and high rates of suicide? I think we have to be very nuanced when we tell these stories. That's what I attempted to do in the book.
"We have to be very nuanced when we tell these stories..."
Trina Moyles on Black Bear
Black Bear is your second memoir; your first, Lookout, chronicled your summers spent as a wildfire observer in Alberta. How did the process of writing both of these deeply personal accounts compare?
I feel like my first memoir, Lookout, actually led me to Black Bear. In an early version of Lookout, at the very end of the story, I had actually included a scene about being bluff charged by this large male black bear, which was terrifying. My editor loved it, but she suggested we cut it because she felt it could be the start of another book, and she actually turned out to be right. So, Lookout and Black Bear are both similar in that they explore our relationships with nature and ecology. But I think Black Bear does that in a much deeper, more focused way. It really explores the divides between ourselves and between nature, and what we can do to try to repair those divisions.
"My editor loved it, but she suggested we cut it because she felt it could be the start of another book."
Trina Moyles on Black Bear
You also narrated both Black Bear and Lookout. What was the recording process like? Did you find catharsis in lending voice to your own story?
So, we actually recorded Black Bear [in] Downtown Whitehorse, in a makeshift sound studio that was underneath a bunk bed, with a minus-40 sleeping bag wrapped around it to try to block out the sounds, and we jokingly called it "The Bear Den." It was such an amazing experience to be able to do the narration for Black Bear. It brought me back to the psyche of the individual bears who are named in the book, and then also to some of my very fond memories with my brother as well. I just did my best to put all my love and affection into the narration to really bring readers into the emotion of the experience.
"We jokingly called it 'The Bear Den'."
Trina Moyles on Black Bear
As a journalist and a memoirist, so much of your writing hinges on the intersection of ecology and emotion, exploring ways in which wild spaces can help us make sense of ourselves. What message do you hope to leave listeners with through hearing your story?
My hope is that readers will be able to transform their fear of bears into knowledge and respect for bears. I feel like bears are such a misunderstood species in many ways. But this book is also about human relationships and our efforts to not dehumanize one another. And so I hope people find common ground and connection in both of the human and the non-human stories within Black Bear.
"I feel like bears are such a misunderstood species..."
Trina Moyles on Black Bear
Are there wildlife memoirs or environmental nonfiction you’d recommend to listeners looking to get more educated—or more connected—with the natural world?
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer has been such a huge inspiration for Black Bear on Indigenous worldviews and the way that we relate to our non-human kin. Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez is one of my favorites and will forever live on my bookshelf. I also loved H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. It is truly a beautiful memoir on grief and learning to connect with goshawks and the natural world. I also love The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich. It always reminds me of the fire tower and the connection with these vast open spaces, and I think she does a beautiful job of conveying sort of the vulnerability in masculinity and looking at rural communities' relationships with land. So, those are some of my favorite books to read and listen to.
