The Search for Grizzly One by Don H. Meredith copyright © 2005
iUniverse, Inc.
ISBN: 0-595-33964-6 (print)
PDF EISBN: 0-595-78751-7 (e-book)
First Place: Outdoor Books
Outdoor Writers of Canada
2006 Communication Awards
"The Search for Grizzly One is a cracking good adventure story set in Canada's North. It was originally intended for young readers, but it contains some of the best writing about northern flying and wilderness life that I have ever encountered. ... Adults, as well as young people, should find reading it a rich and rewarding experience. Highly recommended."— Merna Summers, Amazon.ca review
"This is an extremely well written story with a very strong plot and beautifully rendered characters."—Writer's Digest Book Awards.
Excerpt from Chapter 1—
Nothing could alleviate the gloom gathering in Mark Daniels' mind. Not the near-blinding wind cutting into his face. Not the long walk through the deepening snow now blanketing the runway. Not even the figure of Trish Grant, just visible ahead, walking to the terminal building. Mark knew Trish was feeling the same gloom. The search was in its eighth day. The Canadian Forces had stopped their search two days ago after covering most of the ground the tiny missing plane could have flown. Only the volunteer civilian air search was still underway. Mark knew it too had to stop sometime, but he couldn't bear to hear the word "stop"—not when they hadn't found a single clue!
Mark followed Trish through the swinging glass doors of the terminal, and their gloom mingled with that of the other search volunteers standing in clutches around the coffee pot and vending machines. They stopped their conversations to look at him and Trish, but he didn't look back this time. He didn't feel like it. Trish broke into a near run as she headed straight to where her mother and other relatives were waiting at the far side of the building.
Mark had no relatives here. They all lived too far away and hadn't bothered coming. He took off his jean jacket without bothering to shake off the melting snow and sat down hard in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs facing the large picture window that looked onto the runway. What lay beyond the window was obscured by blowing snow.
The steadily building despair was almost too hard for Mark to take. No one came his way to console him like they usually did. Not even the women who, after a full day of looking out the windows of small airplanes, often competed among themselves to be his stand-in mother. He knew why they weren't coming his way. The pilots were having a meeting in the tiny airport office, discussing how much longer they should continue the search. Mark knew the search couldn't last forever, but this snowstorm was just a temporary delay, not a reason to cancel an entire search! Besides, wasn't the pilot who had flown the missing plane one of them? Wasn't he regaled as one of the best bush pilots in the business? That's what they had all told him, time after time. They wouldn't give up on one of their own, would they?
From the back cover
Time is running out for a teenager searching for his grandfather's lost plane in Northern Canada. Can he trust the intuitions of Trish, the pilot's daughter? In The Search for Grizzly One, Mark Daniels is a sixteen-year-old whose grandfather, along with the pilot of a bush airplane, has disappeared on a fly-in hunting trip somewhere over northern Alberta.
After an extensive aerial search turns up nothing, Mark sets out with Trish on their own search. Following a hunch about what might have happened, the pair treks through the Northern Alberta wilderness. The journey tests every fiber of Mark's being, but along the way, he learns much about himself, the wilderness, and the unbreakable human spirit.
Wildlife writer and biologist Don Meredith vividly describes the rugged terrain and harsh elements Trish and Mark endure on their desperate quest to find their loved ones-before it's too late.
© Don H. Meredith 2005 Any reproduction of this work, in whole or part, in any media is prohibited unless expressly granted by the author. For more information, see the copyright notice.