How to Survive a Bear Attack

A Memoir

De: Claire Cameron

Narrado por: Claire Cameron, Rachel Cairns

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE 2025 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Globe and Mail • CBC • Spotify • The Hill Times

In this debut memoir from the bestselling author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron confronts the rare genetic mutation that gave her cancer by investigating an equally rare and terrifying event—a predatory bear attack.

When Claire Cameron was nine years old, her father, a professor of Old English, told her he was dying. In the years after he was gone, she found a way to overcome her grief among the rivers and lakes of Algonquin Park, a vast Canadian wilderness area. Around that same time, in 1991, a couple was killed by a black bear in a rare predatory attack in the park. Claire was shocked and, never fully sure of what happened, the attack haunted her.
Now older, with children of her own, Cameron was diagnosed with the same kind of deadly skin cancer as her father. Caught in a second wave of grief, she was told by her doctor, “the ideal exposure to UV light is none.” No longer able to venture into the wilderness as she once had, with long scars on her back, she became obsessed with the bear attack in Algonquin Park again. How could terror rip through such a beautiful place? Could she separate truth from fiction? She headed north to investigate.
Seamlessly weaving together nature writing with true crime investigation in this unflinching account of recovery, How to Survive a Bear Attack is at once an intimate portrait of an extraordinary animal, a bracing chronicle of pain, obsession, and love, and a profoundly moving exploration of how we can understand and survive the wildness that lives inside us.

Reseñas de la Crítica

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE 2025 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Globe and Mail • CBC • Spotify • The Hill Times

“At once a memoir, a meticulously researched investigation, and a medita­tion on the force of nature, Claire Cameron weaves the narrative together seamlessly in a tale of courage, determination, and, above all else, love. A remarkable achievement that teaches us not only how to survive, but how to thrive, even when the odds are stacked against you.” —David A. Robertson, author of The Theory of Crows and Black Water

“Deeply researched and profoundly moving, Claire Cameron’s wonderful book is, at root, a braided love story, by turns heartbreaking and terrifying, but above all brimming with a fierce affection—for her family, for her subjects, and for the precious, precarious act of staying alive. I could not put it down.” —John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather and The Tiger

“True wilderness has no narrative. It is immediate, and visceral, beyond words at the time, and often beyond description later. So, it speaks to Claire Cameron’s courage and skill as a writer that she has triumphantly wrested such a compelling and profound story out of her journey, both into the wild heart of bear country, and into the terror-filled landscape of a devastating cancer diagnosis. How to Survive a Bear Attack is a transcen­dent, powerfully moving, brilliant literary achievement.” —Helen Humphreys, author of Followed by the Lark

“Stunning . . . offers nature writing at its finest. At its heart, How to Survive a Bear Attack is an unforgettable story about finding the courage to face even the wildest of natures within and around us all.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“In a masterful fusion of forensic journalism, nature reporting and memoir, Claire Cameron’s account of a deadly incident explores mortality and the consciousness of the wild. How to Survive a Bear Attack paddles readers through Algonquin Park rivers and into the halls of medicine, asking them to be brave and inquisitive in order to survive the unexpected.” —Governor General’s Literary Award peer assessment committee (Kevin Chong, Norma Dunning and Adrienne Gruber)

“A brave book.” —Literary Review of Canada