The Tsimshian people believe in the legend of Moksgm'ol - the spirit of the rainforest. It is said that Creator, the Raven, decided to create a reminder of when the world was once covered with ice and snow. To do this, he was said to fly among the black and brown bear people and turn every tenth one white. He decreed that these bears would live in peace and harmony forever.

Until the turn of the century, Moksgm'ol lived in virtual isolation, known only to the Tsimshian people. As change began to invade the untouched rainforests of British Columbia, the secret of Moksgm'ol slowly became known. Most settlers that inhabited the north coast one hundred years ago, laughed at the idea of a 'spirit' bear and although a white pelt would show up occasionally at fur trading posts, it was commonly believed to be a misplaced polar bear. To one, however, the thought of the polar bear being twenty three hundred kilometers away from its known range was too far of a stretch. W.T. Hornaday, a naturalist from the New York Zoological Society, launched an investigation to discover the secrets of Moksgm'ol, the spirit of the rainforest.

Hornaday spent several years in the backwoods of B.C.'s north coast in search of the elusive white bear, which in his opinion, was a new species-awaiting discovery. The possibilities for discoveries seemed endless in this wild new land. In 1905, Hornaday announced the discovery of a new species and named the bear Kermode, after Francis Kermode, the director of the B.C. Museum of Natural History, who did much of Hornaday's legwork. As a result, Kermode assisted in the study in 1924, providing the outside world, the first view into the life of the Kermode bear, with the capture of a small white cub. However, the more they seemed to learn, the less they actually knew.

As studies began, by scientists other than Hornaday, the results revealed that the Kermode bear wasn't a distinct species, as Hornaday had boldly stated, but not an Albino either. It was, in fact, a genetically unique subspecies of the North American black bear, which for unknown reasons, occurred only in one small corner of the world, in one small corner of B.C.