"Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you." You’ve probably heard this saying before. Of course, very few people have actually been eaten by a bear, and even fewer have lived to tell about it. My big brother is one of the few. Fifty years ago, on June 18, 1959, he battled a grizzly for close to an hour, as the hungry bear consumed a good part of him. This week, he reunited in Glacier National Park with the ranger who saved his life. What can we learn from his story? Among other things, perseverance and flexibility are the keys to surviving tough times.
My brother Joe was 20 years old in 1959 when he and his buddy Ron planned to travel to Alaska for the summer. It was the year Alaska became a state, and there were some big celebrations planned. When they reached the Canadian border, they were turned back - the Canadian government required that all travelers have a significant amount of cash to drive the 1200 mile unpaved road. So, they headed to Glacier National Park to camp for a few days while some checks cleared (no ATMs in 1959, of course).
After camping for one night, Joe and Ron realized that Glacier offered everything they had hoped to find in Alaska, along with the added bonus of dozens of attractive college girls working as summer staff in the park’s restaurants and lodges. They quickly found jobs as waiters at one of the park properties ($1 per hour plus room and board). After settling in at the dorm, Ron wanted to go fishing and Joe was eager to take an evening hike. He thought he would go alone, but at the last minute a 17-year old from Michigan agreed to join him.
It was late evening as they began to ascend Mt. Altyn, a steep climb that offered breathtaking views of Swiftcurrent Lake and the surrounding peaks. Near the summit, Joe sat down to rest. As he looked down the mountain, he saw a bear completing switchbacks up the slope towards him. He sat very still as she slowly circled him, then she sniffed and licked the back of his neck.
When Joe had been hired that morning, he had asked about bears. The personnel man was very dismissive – "If you don’t bother the bears, they won’t bother you. Stay still, ignore the bear, and it should go away." Joe managed to follow that advice until the bear bit him in the butt, and he then jumped up and ran down the mountain. Now, if you have ever read anything about what to do if a grizzly bear attacks, you are shaking your head and exclaiming "Joe, wrong move!" in a pitying voice. You’ve read that the best response to a grizzly attack is to curl up in a ball and play dead, hoping that the bear will inflict a few scratches and bites, then give up and shamble away. You know that running may actually instigate a predatory response - to chase and eat the prey – the "prey" being you. However – and this is a big "however" – if the bear is already exhibiting predatory behavior, then the absolute right thing to do is try to escape. So, in this situation, how do you decide? Joe’s instinct told him to run and he did. Although grizzlies can achieve speeds of thirty-five miles an hour, they have difficulty running straight down a steep slope, so he might actually have been able to outrun her for a short time.
Unfortunately, as he ran down the rock-covered incline, he ran straight off a cliff. Picture Wile E. Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons; his shock and dismay as he realizes the only thing beneath his feet is...air. The cliff was actually more of an outcropping, about twenty feet high, but the fall knocked the wind out of him. The bear - obviously smarter than Joe - went around the ledge, jumped on his back, and started to dig in.
His hiking companion, Bob, tried to distract the bear by throwing rocks, and even picked up a 20-pound boulder and tried to strike the bear in the head (actually, he missed and hit Joe in the head). But it was clear that he needed to get help, so he ran screaming down the mountain, leaving Joe alone with the bear.
At first, the bear put Joe’s entire head in her mouth and ground her teeth against his skull, like a dog with a large bone. This resulted in the removal of his scalp. Joe knew he had to do something, so he pulled away and faced the bear. He was able to keep her occupied for several minutes by punching her in the snout, which is quite sensitive – actually boxing the bear. This worked for awhile, until she blocked his punch with one paw and brought the other around, hooked her claws in his mouth, and ripped his chin off. At this point, he knew the boxing idea had run its course.
He lay on his stomach, as she bit and clawed at his back. When she reached his buttocks, she found what she was looking for – something to sink her teeth into. This bear was hungry. She did not have any cubs, he had not startled the bear – she was looking for a meal. As she tore into his buttocks, chewing and swallowing, Joe realized that she was literally eating him alive. His next tactic was to stick his heavy leather boot in her mouth. She chewed on the boot but was not able to penetrate it. This worked for maybe 10 minutes, but she then gave up and ripped the right side of Joe’s face off. Eventually, they found several pounds of Joe in the bear’s stomach.
Meanwhile, Bob’s screams were heard at the ranger station near Many Glacier Lodge. Nancy Dayton, wife of the only full-time ranger in the area, was able to reach her husband Don. Don came as fast as he could and grabbed the only rifle in the park – an old WWII surplus 30/.06 of his own that he had modified for hunting. He grabbed 4 shells and ran up the mountain. He had no idea where to find Joe – Bob was in shock and could barely point to a general area. But Don ran up the mountain carrying the heavy rifle and he spotted the bear, sitting up and gnawing on Joe’s leg. His first shot missed. The second one struck her in the shoulder and made her angry – she picked Joe up and shook him, like a terrier with a rat.
The third shot – from 100 yards away, the length of a football field, from a gun with no sights, in the dusk – hit her in the spine and killed her instantly. This ended Joe’s 45-minute to one hour battle with the grizzly.
There’s more to the story, of course – the 40 mile race to the nearest hospital in Canada, the initial 5 months of hospitalization in Pennsylvania, 3 years of painful plastic surgery procedures. Since he had just turned 20, he was no longer covered by my parent's health insurance, so the hospital bills came close to bankrupting them. Joe eventually was able to return to college and finish his bachelor’s degree, married a great woman, had four children, and still works every day at a job he loves. He’s had six-way heart bypass surgery (twice), colon cancer (three times), and countless other things to deal with. He continues to be upbeat, cheerful and full of life.
I joined Joe and Ranger Dayton this week in Glacier for the 50th anniversary of the attack. Due to his heart issues, Joe could not climb to the actual site, but I did so. I am pretty fit at age 57, but Don Dayton and his wife Nancy, both 80, practically sprinted up the mountain. Believe me, this is one heck of a climb – it’s practically vertical for the mile from Swiftcurrent to the spot where Don made what he modestly calls a "lucky shot." Don and Nancy ski at 12,000 feet every winter.
Of course, it is sad that a grizzly died that day. They have made something of a comeback in recent years, but the conflict between bears and people wanting to occupy the same space means that they continue to be endangered. Naturalists have learned a great deal about bear behavior in the last 50 years, and these types of encounters are rare. Still, I’m very, very glad that the bear, not my brother, died on that mountain in 1959.
In some ways, that metaphorical bear tries to eat us every day. If we can be as resourceful as Joe and Don, we can persevere. And remember, things may be tough, but at least you don’t have a grizzly bear sitting on you eating big chunks of your butt.
UPDATE: The obligatory, wow, first time on the rec list! Also, I figured out how to add a photo - a picture I took Thursday (50 years to the day).