Caroline Van Hemert is a wildlife biologist and writer based in Alaska, where she lives with her two sons and her husband Pat. They live an adventurous, off-the-grid lifestyle, on their sailboat, skiing the backcountry, and with grizzlies in their backyard. She is the author of The Sun is a Compass, which won the Banff Mountain Book Award for Adventure Travel and was cited as one of the best outdoor books of 2019 by Outside, Bustle, and Forbes.
Caroline’s travels have taken her all over the world, from the Arctic Ocean to the swamps of the Okavango Delta. Along the way, she has been outsmarted by Cheeto-eating crows, stalked by predatory bears, charged by elephants, and humbled by 10-g chickadees that shiver through winter nights. She is currently en route through the Arctic with her family aboard their 43-foot sailboat.
Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Audubon, Outside, Washington Post, and more. She holds a Ph.D. in wildlife biology and an M.A. in creative writing.
Published
We’ve always been thrilled to see orcas near our home in Alaska. But sailing through the waters along the Iberian Peninsula, where 600 boats have been hit—and five sunk—by whales, was unnerving at best.
To live in the small town of Haines, Alaska, is to live with bears, with roughly one brown bear for every nine human residents. Last winter, a local snowboarder woke a hibernating brown bear in the backcountry and was severely injured, furthering tensions between food-stressed bears and anxious local residents. But in most encounters, it’s the bear that ends up dead, prompting the question of what it means to coexist.
What a 4,000-mile expedition with her husband taught Caroline Van Hemert, author of 'The Sun Is a Compass,' about navigating a relationship in close quarters