Bear Proof Tree

Bear Proof Tree is a reflective memoir spanning fifty years—from helicopter adventures over Greenland and black bear encounters in the Yukon to the ancient pilgrimage trails of Spain's Camino de Santiago.

After five decades as a geologist and venture capitalist, Steve arrived at the Camino at age 67 as a self-described "Newtonian mechanist"—a man who believed everything meaningful must be explainable. The Camino had other plans. Fellow pilgrims taught connection; the vast Meseta eroded ego; exhaustion opened space for mystery.

The field-tested lessons that kept him alive in the wilderness—"Always know where the nearest bear-proof tree is" and "Leave room for the Unexplainable"—became the philosophical backpack he carried across Spain, reappearing in unexpected ways and revealing that transformation is less about discovering new truths than finally recognizing long-ignored ones.

A second Camino with his wife Annie confirmed the shift, echoing Heraclitus: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

For readers of Hape Kerkeling's I'm Off Then, Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, and Mark Adams' Turn Right at Machu Picchu