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claire cameron
for decades author claire cameron was consumed with details of a rare but deadly bear attack in algonquin park.
an outdoor enthusiast, cameron taught mountaineering, climbing and white-water rafting in her young adult life. she found solace in the majestic wilderness of the same provincial park after her father passed away from cancer.
then, faced with a life-altering diagnosis of her own — the same type of cancer that took her father — the reason behind her fascination with the attack came together. the result is the non-fiction book how to survive a bear attack.
part memoir, nature writing and true crime, the book follows three journeys: the circumstances that lead the campers to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, what potentially prompted the bear to attack, and cameron coming to terms with the unpredictability of life.
“i really set out to figure out what happened and why,” said cameron. “but in answering the why, and how does a terrible thing like this happen in such a beautiful place, like a place i love so much, i came to some larger realizations, about how to live and how to be more in the moment than i was before and how to enjoy the simpler thing.”
cameron will speak in sudbury on may 21 at the annual celebrate women event at sudbury secondary school. the talk will be held at sudbury secondary school at 7 p.m. tickets are $20 each.
“the book evolved over several years,” cameron said in an interview, “so i didn’t set out to write the three strands. it was more that i wanted to answer a question and in order to answer that question fully, i needed to account for what happened on the night of oct. 10 199, when this bear attacked two people. i also wanted to understand what happened from the bear’s perspective, which sounds odd as this is actually a story more about bears than about humans because it was a bear that made a decision that changed everything that night.”
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the memoir aspect of the book came much later, explained cameron. as people reading her first draft asked her why she was so obsessed with the bear attack story. “to tell a complete story, i had to fill in the personal part, what kind of fear this attack put into me and why i became so obsessed with it,” she said.
at the same time, cameron said she was careful not to demonize the bear in the story.
“i love bears and i know how rare these attacks are,” she said. she shelved the book idea for a while because she was conscious of how the animal could be portrayed.
“it wasn’t until i saw a picture of the bear, in the archives in algonquin park,” that she picked up writing again, she said. “he was lying on his side, and he looked healthy. i could see, it was something that bear biologists had been telling me, that i hadn’t understood, that this bear was an individual.”
just as humans have different personalities and behaviour, so did the bear, she said. “he was on the extreme edge.” the bear decided to attack, which is not typical behaviour, she said.
from there cameron started working with a bear biologist who gave her the key to understanding a bear’s behaviour. “follow its stomach,” he told her.
“that became the backbone of the story and from there i used research, first-hand accounts and my own experience with bears in algonquin park,” she said.
working on the book was cathartic for cameron. after her cancer diagnosis, cameron underwent major surgery.
“i told my surgeon i felt he cut out my creativity at the same time because i lost my ability to write fiction, which i had been doing for years,” she said. “the process of this investigation helped me find my voice. and i’m healthy right now and so i want to use that energy and my voice to write (more) fiction. i think that’s what is next.”
cameron also wrote the novel the last neanderthal, which was a national bestseller and a finalist for the 2017 rogers writers’ trust fiction prize. her second novel the bear was long listed for the women’s prize for fiction and won the northern lit award from the ontario library service.
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organized by cfuw sudbury (canadian federation of university women), celebrate women features best-selling authors in the city to raise money for post-secondary scholarships for young women. this year, cfuw sudbury has partnered with two other organizations: ywca sudbury and leaf sudbury (legal education and action fund).
books will be available for sale at the event for $30. tickets to celebrate women are $20 (plus a processing fee of $2.63) and available online at eventbrite.ca. (search for celebrate women sudbury).
local tickets outlets with cash only sales are: adoro olive oils and vinegars at 1984 regent st., ramakko’s at 2345 regent st., and jett landry music at 1119 lasalle blvd. some tickets will be available at the door. live streaming of the event is available through eventbrite for $20.
ticket link: tinyurl.com/564zt6ka.
the local journalism initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.
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