Spirit of the Great Bear

A striking collection of 90 photographs depicting the rugged grandeur of the Northwest Coast’s Great Bear Rainforest. Spirit of the Great Bear is an immersive journey through the vast wilderness habitat of the spirit bear, the rare white-furred variant of Kermode bears that has long featured in First Nations oral traditions. While much of Great Bear Rainforest is protected—it is the largest intact coastal temperate rainforest on Earth—today there are as few as 100 of the bears remaining, making it one of the world's rarest animals. Wildlife photographer and conservationist Jack Plant has spent the last decade exploring the rainforest in search of spirit bears and documenting the natural beauty of this coastal habitat, relying heavily on the guidance and traditional knowledge generously shared by the First Nations communities who have protected the region for thousands of years. Plant was adopted by Hereditary Chief Charlie Mason of Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation in the community of Klemtu. Spirit of the Great Bear features photographic accounts of Plant’s wild and memorable encounters with the white bears, as well as with other extraordinary species found in the Great Bear Rainforest, including grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, orcas, and humpback whales. The book examines the natural and human-caused threats to the rich biodiversity of the Rainforest while highlighting the substantial progress Indigenous leaders and conservationists have made to protect one of the most biodiverse landscapes in the world. It’s both a celebration of the spirit bear’s resilience and its wilderness home, and an urgent reminder of the need to protect this special and vulnerable ecosystem.