On the way to their favourite fishing site, the Grizzly Mother and her cubs encounter an old male who tried to kill them the previous summer. This time, he does not pay any attention to them. His focus is his favourite spot at the top of the waterfall. If they stay back, they will keep out of harm’s way. With a steep climb and a walk through some thick brush, mother and her cubs arrive at the small gravel beach where they’ve fished before.
Huson, who authored The Sockeye Mother has added another title to the “Mothers of Xsan” series. The Grizzly Mother is about a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs that, after coming out of hibernation, are forging for sockeye salmon and berries. Huson shows how the animals share the land and the Skeena River with the Gitxsan people of Northwestern British Columbia. To enhance a reader’s understanding of the journey, the author includes definitions of six of the words found on the page and a one-page description of the Gitxsan Nation at the back of the book. The realistically styled illustrations are coloured to reflect the four seasons, and, because many of the illustrations are close-up views of the bears and the people, the reader feels a connection to what’s happening in the story. Also appearing in the art work are other animals native to the area and beautiful Indigenous designs on the moon. Throughout the story, there are Gitxsan words that are defined in context.
Tanya Boudreau is a librarian at the Cold Lake Public Library in Cold Lake, Alberta.
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