Dominion of Bears: Living with Wildlife in Alaska

Winner: John Burroughs Medal

Long ago we invited bears into our stories, our dreams, our nightmares, our lives. We have always sought them out where they live, for their hides, their meat, their beauty, their knowingness. Human country and bear country exist side by side.

As Sherry Simpson suggests, the relationship between bears and humans is ancient and ongoing and, in Alaska, profoundly and often uncomfortably close. A huge number of North America’s bears live in Alaska: including at least...