The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy, and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Lynn Schooler lives on a small boat in Alaska and makes his living safely guiding photographers, nature enthusiasts, and scientists through storm-prone waterways strewn with icebergs, across precarious, unstable fjords and dense northern forests. A loner partly by nature, partly by habit, Schooler becomes lost in mourning after a string of devastating events, his emotional isolation suddenly running parallel to that of his lifestyle.

The Blue Bear is Schooler's homage to Michio Hoshino, a Japanese photographer whose friendship helped Schooler reemerge from his self-imposed isolation. The outlining story is that of a wilderness guide and a photographer who endeavor to find the elusive glacial bear, often referred to as the Blue Bear because of the metallic sheen of its silvery fur. But this is merely a plot point for a greater allegory that disentangles the tendrils of human relations and illuminates the wondrous natural cycle of ebb and flow, death and rebirth.

Hoshino teaches Schooler by example, and both his life and his tragic death hold the bittersweet but invaluable lesson that reaffirms Schooler's belief in the interdependence of all things. Schooler is a philosopher with a poetic bent, one capable of elucidating the inexorable bonds between man and nature in a gentle, unfettered prose. As he ruminates over the loss of his dear friend, Schooler recounts, "I am diminished by the sight of the glacier and all it had accomplished -- carving mountains and valleys with its comings and goings, rearranging entire worlds made of stone.... And feeling this, I felt a great contentment warm my blood." Reading The Blue Bear, you will also share in that warmth. (Ann Kashickey)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With a body twisted by adolescent scoliosis and memories of the brutal death of a woman he loved, Lynn Schooler kept the world at arm's length, drifting through the wilds of Alaska as a commercial fisherman, outdoorsman, and wilderness guide. In 1990 Schooler met Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino and began a profound friendship forged by a love of adventure and cemented by their mutual obsession with finding the elusive glacier bear, an exceedingly rare creature, seldom seen and shrouded in legend. But it was only after Hoshino's tragic death from a bear attack that Schooler succeeded in photographing the animal — and only then that he Was able to complete his journey and find new meaning in his own life.

Set amid the wild archipelagoes, glittering fjords, and dense primordial forests of Alaska's Glacier Coast, The Blue Bear is an unforgettable book that shines with purity and passion.

SYNOPSIS

"The strength of this beautifully crafted memoir lies in its evocation of the overpowering Alaskan landscape and the thoughts it imposes on the author's agile and receptive mind�." (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

FROM THE CRITICS

The New Yorker

Schooler, who has worked for many years as a guide in the unpredictable waters of the Alaska Panhandle, has distilled a life of unusual intensity into his first book. The story centers on the renowned nature photographer Michio Hoshino, a client who became a friend, and the two men's ongoing search for the elusive glacier bear, a blue variant of the North American black bear. (Hoshino was killed by a grizzly in Russia, in 1996.) In telling that story, the author wanders, like a good conversationalist, into absorbing asides -- about harrowing episodes in his own past, about the natural history of Alaska, about hardy fellow-eccentrics he has known. As a writer, Schooler is an amateur in the original sense of the word; his writing reveals an abundance of wilderness savvy, and a mind scrupulous about getting the world down as accurately as possible.

Publishers Weekly

The strength of this beautifully crafted memoir lies in its evocation of the overpowering Alaskan landscape and the thoughts it imposes on the author's agile and receptive mind, gradually opening his solitary heart to the grace of true friendship. As photographer and writer Schooler recounts, it's been his lifelong tendency to turn inward, ever since his "grandmother's hunchback gene put its weight on my shoulder... trying to hold me down even as my body grew taller." At 16, he fought his scoliosis by strapping on a steel body brace that extended from his chin to his hips, isolating him from other kids. It was a distance he chose to maintain when, two years later, he exchanged his brace for a backpack and departed for the lonely freedom of the countryside around his Alaskan home. Readers meet him as a middle-aged wilderness guide based in Juneau, emotionally battered by the brutal death of a woman he loved, yet still subsumed by the endlessly unfolding drama of wind, weather, predators and prey along the glaciered coast. On an auspicious chartered trip, Schooler leads renowned nature photographer Michio Hoshino to a circle of humpback whales that explode to the surface of a sun-flecked sea with brimming mouthfuls of herring. The Japanese man's simple questions and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world and to his guide slowly draw Schooler out. Over the next decade, the men's bond deepens as they decide to pursue the rare and elusive glacier, or "blue," bear in an archetypal journey whose meaning becomes apparent only after Schooler has suffered the loss of his friend. 8 pages of color photos. (May) Forecast: More ruminative and profound than its hair-raising subtitle might suggest, this memoir ranks with the best nature writing and deserves commensurate review attention. Foreign rights have been sold in 13 countries. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

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School Library Journal

Adult/High School-A memoir by a wilderness guide along Alaska's glacier coast. It includes tragedy and heartache almost beyond measure, but also profound beauty, deep friendship, and enormous respect for the world we inhabit. Schooler's friendship with the acclaimed Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino and their search for the highly elusive blue bear (aka glacier bear) is the central story. The author's portrait of this thoughtful, engaging man evolves slowly and is thoroughly convincing. Another story concerns the brutal death of a woman the author loved at the hands of a monstrous mass murderer. That this killer and Hoshino could live on the same planet and be of the same species is just one of the many wonders of nature that appear in Schooler's excellent book. His sincerity, honesty, and humbleness are palpable, and there are lessons here for readers of any age.-Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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