Set on Alaska's Glacier Coast, The Blue Bear is about the search for one of the world's most elusive animals, the friendship that was forged between a wilderness guide and a nature photographer, and the tragedy that ensued.

With his body twisted by adolescent scoliosis and his memory scarred by the brutal death of a woman he loved, Lynn Schooler kept the world at arm's length, drifting through the wilds of Alaska as a commercial fisherman, outdoorsman, and wilderness guide. In 1990 Schooler met Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino and began a profound friendship cemented by a shared love of adventure and a quest to find the elusive glacier bear, an exceedingly rare creature, seldom seen and shrouded in legend. But it was only after Hoshino's tragic death from a bear attack that Schooler succeeded in photographing the animal -- and only then that he was able to complete the journey and find new meaning in his own life.

The Blue Bear is an unforgettable book that shines with purity and passion. Set amid the wild archipelagoes, glittering fjords, and dense primordial forests of Alaska's Glacier Coast, it is rich with the lyric sensibility and stunning prose of such nature classics as Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams and Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard.