North Island Gazette, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

When two grizzly bears island-hopped across the Johnston Strait to Alert Bay in 2016, the community was transfixed — and afraid. Children were kept inside while conservation officers set traps. Within a week the bears were captured and relocated back to their territory in the Great Bear Rainforest. Judy Hilgemann, an artist originally from Port Alice, had firsthand accounts of the situation from her conservation officer husband, and she turned the saga into a children’s story called The Great Grizzlies Go Home.