Calvin “Cal” Grizzlington was born deep in the Sierra Nevada wilderness, in a shaded grove of towering pines beside an ice-fed stream. From the start, nature was his classroom and his playground. His earliest memories are of watching trout dart beneath the surface, the smell of fresh cedar, and the way the wind whispered secrets through the high branches.

Raised by an older generation of bears who believed in self-reliance and respect for the land, Cal grew up with a foot in two worlds: the rugged mountain wilderness of his birth and the stories of the coast told by migratory birds who passed overhead. These birds carried tales of waves crashing against sandy shores, silver flashes of fish, and a vast horizon that called to him.