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 31,000 brown bears, 100,000 black bears, and 3,500 polar bears. And nearly every aspect of Alaskan society reflects their presence, from hunting to tourism marketing to wildlife management to urban planning. A long-time Alaskan, Simpson offers a series of compelling essays on Alaskan bears in both wild and urban spaces—because in Alaska, bears are found not only in their natural habitat but also in cities and towns. Combining field research, interviews, and a host of up-to-date scientific sources, her finely polished prose conveys a wealth of information and insight on ursine biology, behavior, feeding, mating, social structure, and much more. Simpson crisscrosses the Alaskan landscape in pursuit of bears as she muses, marvels, and often stands in sheer awe before these charismatic creatures. Firmly grounded in the expertise of wildlife biologists, hunters, and viewing guides, she shows bears as they actually are, not as we imagine them to be. She considers not only the occasionally aggressive behavior bears need to survive, but also the violence exacted upon them by trophy hunters, advocates of predator control, or suburbanites who view bears as land sharks that threaten the safety of their families. Shifting effortlessly between fascinating facts and poetic imagery, Simpson crafts an extended meditation on why we are so drawn to bears and why they continue to engage our imaginations, populate indigenous mythologies, and help define our essential visions of wilderness. As Simpson observes, "The slightest evidence that bears share your world—or that you share theirs—can alter not only your sense of the landscape, but your sense of yourself within that landscape."

Dominion of Bears: Living with Wildlife in Alaska

History

Simpson, Sherry

Americas

University Press of Kansas

Umbrella Guide to Ports of Call in Southeast Alaska

Travel

United States

Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company

A popular Juneau photographer takes readers on an armchair journey along the coastlines of southeast and southcentral Alaska, via the state ferries.

Alaska's Ocean Highways: A Travel Adventure Aboard Northern Ferries

Epicenter Press

Kelley takes readers on an armchair journey through the Inside Passage, a thousand miles of natural wonders. Simpson chronicles a trip along the romantic mainline route from Bellingham to Skagway, as well as describing the seagoing life of crew members, the history of the ferry system, and the character and charm of rural ferry routes. 100 color photos. 4 maps.

Specialty Travel

Epicenter Pr

Essays discuss the beauty of Alaska, trapping wolves, the characteristics of ravens, tracking the movements of grizzly bears, and wilderness survival

The Way Winter Comes: Alaska Stories

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

Sasquatch Books

Alaska is a place of great adventure and exploration. After having lived in the Great Land for nearly all of her life, Sherry Simpson realized that she had not scaled mountains, trekked across wild tundra, or blazed trails through virgin forests. Did that fact make her less of an Alaskan? In the series of essays that comprise The Accidental Explorer, Sherry Simpson recounts the experiences of an ordinary woman confronting the great expanses of water and untracked land in Alaska, as she makes her best efforts to map her sense of place and her sense of self in a land that seems to require exploration of its inhabitants. While undertaking arduous treks into the backcountry, she falls into a glacial river and nearly drowns. On an archetypal epic solo hike, she ruminates constantly on when and whether she should abandon that folly. She writes with both humor and humility, harnessing great powers of observation of the natural world. In a downright scary encounter with a mildly aggressive bear, Simpson shrinks from any supposed Alaskan larger-than-life persona to assume her place on the food chain: an urbanized human who is appropriately afraid of big bears. Simpson also offers up the (less reverent) Alaskan view of Chris McCandles, the wanderer who perished in an abandoned bus near Denali, subject of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Can an ordinary, not especially heroic, person be an adventurer? If she sets out, in a wild place like Alaska, what will she find out there, and what will she learn about the place back home? Throughout this compelling and probing book, Sherry Simpson illuminates the act of exploration as both a feat of extraordinary effort and as an everyday experience.

The Accidental Explorer: Wayfinding in Alaska

Laboratory Manual and Workbook for Biological Anthropology

Medical Books

Medicine

Independently published

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Books by Simpson, Sherry