ENRAGED BRUINS BRING RUIN
Canmore author realizes nature’s revenge
It was patriotism that inspired Alexander Finbow to destroy Canada’s biggest cities.
The editor and publisher of Canmore-based Renegade Arts Entertainment has only lived in Canada for a few years, having relocated his family and business here in 2009. But he felt the Great White North had historically been overlooked when it came to giant monster attacks.
The thought occurred to him thanks to acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. The man behind Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy had tweeted a shout out to Doug Bradley’s Spinechillers, a series of audiobooks produced by Renegade. This got Finbow thinking about del Toro’s latest effort, the sequel to his 2013 giant robots vs. giant monsters blockbuster Pacific Rim.
“I was looking at the locations they were using for that film and none of them were in Canada,” Finbow says. “It was all the usual cities. It’s bizarre that in popular culture, Canada doesn’t feature as a place for giant-sized destruction, whether it’s aliens or monsters. Godzilla never went on a rampage in Winnipeg or Toronto or Calgary. King Kong? Nope, not interested. Aliens? They don’t care about Canada.
“So I did some research and I couldn’t find any big TV shows, books or movies where Canada was the focal point of big, Armageddon-style monster epics. To be able to really qualify as a global super-cultural power, it needs some giant-sized destruction of its own.”
So Finbow joined forces with Winnipeg illustrator Nyco Ru- dolph for When Big Bears Invade, which finds a number of enraged giant bears levelling cities and towns in Canada as a response to the environmental destruction to their habitat.
“I knew the monsters would be uniquely Canadian,” he says. “So I was going through all the different animals associated with Canada. Being in Canmore and having bears wandering through our backyard all the time, bears seemed to be the best of the go-to options.
“And then I needed a reason to motivate our Canadian bears. As a good storyteller, you can’t just have random monsters show up for no reason. It was a very small leap of logic to think they would be very grumpy at us or destroying forests, for hunting them and for destroying their habitat.”
When Big Bears Invade is done in children’s book style, with the tale told in rhyme to wide-eyed children by a wise grandmotherly type. While the big cities are on the receiving end of most of the wrath, smaller areas are also hit.
The Banff Springs Hotel is kicked to pieces by a giant “Sacred Buffalo Guardian” summoned by a Banff bear shaman. The oilsands are done away with by polar bears using massive glaciers to crush the operations. Giant bear cubs play jump-rope with oil pipelines.
Calgary meets its end after a sleepy but angry bear, annoyed that Cowtown has situated itself in the exact spot she wants to sleep, flicks the city off the ground as if she were ridding a picnic blanket of bothersome ants.
“It’s the whole thing about where Calgary is, geographically,” Finbow says. “It does feel like it was a little bit arbitrary. I know the history behind how Calgary ended up where it is. But it does, on the surface, seem like it was put there just for the chinooks, so that it would get a bit better weather than Edmonton. So I thought an arbitrary response to getting rid of it — just one flick and the whole city is gone — was appropriate.”
When Big Bears Attack comes across as a sort of twisted tribute to Canadiana. Bears wreak havoc on Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa and Winnipeg in very Canadian ways: through hockey, through curling, even through a raging tsunami of poutine.
But it’s also a cautionary tale. “I think fiction and stories are a better route to find conversations around truth than non-fiction quite often,” Finbow says. “For a lot of people, as soon as they are presented with facts it becomes a binary conversation. You’re either for the economy or for the environment, there’s no middle ground. You’re for oil or you’re against oil. I think these things are a lot more nuanced than that. A story like When Big Bears Invade will get people to enjoy it but to also think and talk.
“I’m hoping that kids will be
thinking about it and asking questions. I’m hoping kids will be asking parents: ‘ Why would bears want to destroy these things? Why would they be angry with these cities that keep on growing?’”
Renegade has published familyfriendly material before, including its award-winning 2014 historic graphic novel The Loxleys and the War of 1812, which took place during the American invasion of Canada.
When Big Bears Invade was initially meant to be for adults in the style of Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés’ 2011 Go the F-ck to Sleep. In the original draft, bears would let the expletives fly as they destroyed cities and ate politicians.
“I ran into a little conundrum because I was going to schools and talking to kids in grades four, five, and six about creative writing,” Finbow says. “They were asking me what book was coming next and I’d tell them about the giant bears book and tell them about the idea behind it. They’d get very excited and say, ‘ We want to read the giant bears book!’ So then I took out all the swearing.”
So the book appeals to both children and adults. It’s also become Renegade’s bestselling title. Still, Finbow does bring back his foulmouthed destroyers for certain occasions. He calls them the “sweary bears.”
“The swear-version only exists when I do readings in the evenings to an over-18 crowd,” Finbow says.
To be able to really qualify as a global super-cultural power, Canada needs some giant-sized destruction of its own.