The Bear's Embrace: A True Story of Survival

About this book

An extraordinary story of survival and recovery by a woman who was attacked by a grizzly bear. On a sunny fall day in 1983 Patricia Van Tighem and her husband Trevor began a hiking trip in the Canadian Rockies with a two-thousand-foot climb through rocks and forest. The next morning in a landscape dusted by snow they crossed paths with a grizzly bearand their lives were forever changed. That Van Tighem survived at all is a miracle and her account of the attack is vivid and startling. But her recovery was just as disturbing: Her numerous reconstructive surgeries were painful; her facial disfigurement isolated her; and the nightmares that haunted her carried their own psychological burden. Yet she was eventually able to accept her unthinkable experiences and to put her life back together as a survivor a wife and a mother. With honesty and eloquence The Bears Embrace tells of the unpredictability of life of bravery terror rage and love of what it means to look and feel different in a culture that values perfection. Uncommonly affecting often astonishing The Bears Embrace is an inspiring story of human perseverance and self-knowledge.