Review of “Seekers - Great Bear Lake” by Erin Hunter
“Seekers - Great Bear Lake” by Erin Hunter is the second book in a fascinating series about a group of bears who must face the results of climate change and human abuse of the environment.
In book one, “Seekers - The Quest Begins” readers were introduced to three young bear cubs, a polar bear named Kallik, a grizzly bear cub named Toklo, and a black bear cub named Lusa.
In a world under the control of humans the wild lands are shrinking as humans build more cities and roads where wilderness used to be. Humans are cutting down the forests and ruining the streams and rivers with pollution and overfishing of salmon. Grizzly bears and black bears have to wander ever greater areas to try to find food to eat. Meanwhile polar bears are affected by global warming which causes the yearly ice sheets to come later and melt sooner each year.
Bears of all types are suffering and dying. But some bears have not given up hope. Each year they meet at Great Bear Lake, a mythical place where they hope to beseech the Great Bear to solve their problems. Grizzlies, Black Bears, and Polar Bears all travel hundreds of miles to gather at this lake.
But many bears are loosing faith in the old traditions. They believe that the only way to survive is to fight humans. Jealousy and strife between the bears threatens to turn the Great Bear Lake gathering into a war between the three different species of bears.
In the midst of this strange and dangerous environment Kallik, Toklo, and Lusa must face the struggles of survival while trying to bring harmony between the bears. But ultimately they must still face the realities of climate change and human encroachment.
I felt that “Seekers - Great Bear Lake” was an interesting sequel. Erin Hunter has done a good job showing climate change and global warming from the point of view of the wild animals. The action of the “Seekers” series keeps me reading, although I can’t help but wonder how the series can end. How can a group of bears, albeit a diverse one, stop humans from ruining the world?
Erin Hunter is a specialist in animal stories. She gives her animals a distinct culture with its own prejudices and terms. The bears call humans “flat faces”. They even have their own religion. This imaginative use of animals is a defining feature of many of Erin Hunter’s books.
Overall I think that the “Seekers” series is an exciting series that manages to teach important lessons about how humans treat the environment and what effect it has on the animals that must make their living off the land that humans are ruining.
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