How to Survive a Bear Attack - by Claire Cameron (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD 2025 (NON-FICTION) - INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

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 told her he was dying. In the years after he was gone, she overcame her grief among the rivers and lakes of Algonquin Park, a vast Canadian wilderness. Around that same time, in 1991, a couple was killed in a rare predatory black bear attack in the park--an event that shocked and haunted Claire.

Years later, 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, she again became obsessed with the bear attack in Algonquin Park. 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.

Review Quotes

Winner of the 2025 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction

*CBC's Great Canadian Books to Read This Spring*
*One of Spotify's Best of the Year So Far (2025)*

"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

"This powerful book asks how we can reconcile the inherent beauty and catharsis of nature with its omnificent, sometimes-frightening power. Readers are offered a moving contemplation of wilderness, survival, and the dangers that lurk unseen within and outside ourselves. The narrative also serves as a compassionate and heartbreaking portrait of an iconic Canadian species." --NUVO Magazine

"A brave book." --Literary Review of Canada

"If you're drawn to memoirs that explore resilience, the human connection to nature, and the struggle to reconcile past trauma with the present, How to Survive a Bear Attack is a must-read. This memoir is a very personal journey of grief, survival, and obsession. What makes it especially compelling is Cameron's ability to weave together themes of survival--both personal and in the face of nature's unpredictability. . . . This memoir is for anyone who enjoys deeply human stories that are raw, honest, and ultimately hopeful." --St. Albert Gazette

"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

About the Author

CLAIRE CAMERON's most recent novel, The Last Neanderthal, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. It sold in eleven territories. Her second novel, The Bear, was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, sold in ten territories, and was a #1 national bestseller. It won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service, which her first novel, The Line Painter, also won. Claire has led canoe trips in Algonquin Park and worked as an instructor for Outward Bound, teaching mountaineering, climbing, and whitewater rafting in Oregon and beyond. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and she is a monthly contributor to The Globe and Mail. She lives in Toronto.