"The Arctic is the greatest wilderness on Earth", says wildlife guide and photographer Hälle Flygare.

In this beautiful book of pictures of birds and mammals of the high country and far north, two eminent biologists (Valerius Geist and Geoff Holroyd) and two well-travelled nature photographers with many years experience observing wild animals (Hälle Flygare and Wayne Lynch) depict and describe the wild survivors of the great ice age.

Before that period, our now-temperate regions were populated by giants: woolly mammoths, enormous bison, short-faced bears, American cheetahs, ground sloths, gigantic beavers and deer with 4-metre wide antlers.

But even now, "North" means "big". This book shows Polar and Alaska Brown bears, big wild sheep, caribou and cougars; whales, orcas, narwhals and beluga whales; wolves, golden and bald eagles, and walrus. But the smaller Arctic mammals and birds are here too: Arctic fox, hares, otters and geese, loons and ptarmigan.

The backdrop is sometimes snow and ice, sometimes the splendid color of a northern autumn, in scarlets and golds, and the blues of coastal waters.

The text is both factual -- explaining why the creatures have evolved to look and behave the way they do -- and revelatory: why we need to slow climate change, reduce poisons and habitat loss in the environment as bird populations slide. Why changing the population decline is important to us as humans on Planet Earth. What we should, and can, do.

Hälle Flygare was born and raised in Sweden, where his interest in photography began at a very young age. He came to Canada as a forestry professional and for many years worked as a Park Warden in Banff National Park. Since 1989, he has worked as a professional photographer, traveling to over 30 countries and leading nature and wildlife photographic tours. Hälle has lived in and photographed the Canadian Rockies for the last 35 years.

Hälle's photographs have been published in leading nature magazines and books throughout the world, including the books Wildflowers of the Canadian Rockies, which has sold over 40,000 copies and Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains, published in 2007 by Whitecap Books.

Hälle Flygare's profile page

Biologist Valerius Geist is emeritus professor in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. The author of numerous books, including Deer of the World: Their Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology and Buffalo Nation: History and Legend of the North American Bison, he first articulated The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation in 1995.

Valerius Geist's profile page

BIOGRAPHY NOT AVAILABLE

Geoffrey Holroyd's profile page

Wildlife photographer and science writer Dr. Wayne Lynch has dedicated almost three decades to learning everything he can about these powerful mammals. In his quest for bears, he has crawled inside the winter dens of black bears and polar bears, held squirming grizzly cubs in his arms, sailed along the coastal rainforests of British Columbia, hiked the cloud forests of the Andes Mountains in South America and ridden elephants through the jungles of Nepal and India.

In Bears, Bears, Bears for Kids, his engaging guide to the world's eight bear species, Lynch introduces us to the strange and wonderful natural histories of these magnificent wild animals.

For more than 40 years, Dr. Wayne Lynch has been writing about and photographing the wildlands of the world from the stark beauty of the Arctic and Antarctic to the lush rainforests of the tropics. Today, he is one of Canada's best-known and most widely published nature writers and wildlife photographers. His photo credits include hundreds of magazine covers, thousands of calendar shots, and tens of thousands of images published in over 80 countries. He is also the author/photographer of more than 45 books for children as well as over 20 highly acclaimed natural history books for adults including Windswept: A Passionate View of the Prairie Grasslands; Penguins of the World; Bears: Monarchs of the Northern Wilderness; A is for Arctic: Natural Wonders of a Polar World; Wild Birds Across the Prairies;Planet Arctic: Life at the Top of the World; The Great Northern Kingdom: Life in the Boreal Forest; Owls of the United States and Canada: A Complete Guide to their Biology and Behavior; Penguins: The World's Coolest Birds; Galapagos: A Traveler's Introduction; A Celebration of Prairie Birds; and Bears of the North: A Year Inside Their Worlds.In 2022, he released Wildlife of the Rockies for Kids and Loons: Treasured Symbols of the North. His books have won multiple awards and have been described as "a magical combination of words and images."

Wayne Lynch's profile page