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Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly

Edited by Susan Snyder

266 pages (11 x 10) with more than 150 color and b&w images
Cloth, ISBN: 1-890771-70-8, $49.50

Published in conjunction with the Bancroft Library

"There have always been bear stories, as long as there have been campfires and shadows in the night, and as long as humans have shared the earth with their fellow predators....

"Part of humankind’s enduring fascination and connection with bears lies in the similarity between us and them. Bears stand upright and their footprints resemble ours. A skinned bear looks much like a naked person. They are intelligent and independent, possessed of distinct personalities. They exemplify maternal care, discipline, and teaching, and they nurse in a sitting position. They can use a claw like a finger or two claws like chopsticks. They can travel fast and lose their tempers. They are omnivorous, and can kill and eat us, as we can kill and eat them. Resilient, brave, and defiant, the California grizzly did not go quietly."—Susan Snyder, from the Introduction

Bear in Mind is the story of the California grizzly bear. Once arguably the most powerful and terrifying animal in the California landscape, he now lives in the imagination, a disembodied symbol of the romantic West. Bear in Mind is also a portal into one of California’s great resources, the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. More than 150 images from the library’s archives and collections—newspaper illustrations from the gold rush, paintings from early scientific expeditions, photo albums, sheet music, settlers’ diaries, fruit-crate labels, and more—accompany the bear stories of Indians, explorers, vaqueros, forty-niners, and naturalists, among others. The result is a uniquely compelling natural history, a grand book worthy of its subject.

Reviews:

"While no one today would dare talk about extinguishing the grizzly, it remains imperiled by old frontier attitudes: exaggerated fear, unbridled demand for resources, and insistence on muscling in on grizzly space. Snyder’s book helps us recognize these outmoded stances and resurrects a more accommodating approach, making it a welcome addition to the lore of grizzly."—Sierra magazine

"One feels a strange combination of grief and exhilaration in this book—so powerfully vivid are the stories and pictures of the California grizzly, so heartbreaking the fact of the great bear’s annihilation. Susan Snyder has done a marvelous job of evoking the wonder, fear, and awe that still cling to the grizzly bear."—Thomas McNamee, author of Grizzly Bear and The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone

"Bear in Mind proves the truth of that story about the canary in the coal mine, except that this canary weighed a thousand pounds. It seems like they’ve been gone forever, but it really hasn’t been that long. An absolutely wonderful book."—John Nielsen, National Public Radio Environment Correspondent

"Bear in Mind is both a delightful experience in reading and looking and a superb holiday gift for anyone fascinated by history, wildlife, and the power of the media to shape our images of the world around us. [This book is] often surprising, and sometimes hauntingly moving."—Richard Brenneman, Berkeley Daily Planet

"Every Californian should know this extraordinary history." —Northcoast Environmental Center

Awards:

1st Place in the 2004 Westerners International Best Book Competition

2004 Rounce and Coffin Club Western Books Exhibition Award

2004 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award for Nature

About the Editor:

Susan Snyder grew up in the valleys and foothills along California’s Highway 99. She worked as a teacher, illustrator, artist, and Japanese language interpreter before landing in the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, where, in her capacity as head of Access Services, she has spent ten years exploring the library’s stacks, attics, and moats. She lives in Point Richmond, California.