Customer Reviews

Bear Attacks of the Century: True Stories of Courage and Survival

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"When it's a bear attack, people bend every rule in the book," says Dr. William Wennen, a trauma/plastic surgeon in Fairbanks, Alaska, who has reconstructed a majority of Alaska's bear attack victims.
Wennen is a recurring character -- a just-this-side-of-the-pearly-gates vision in a white coat -- in a graphic collection of true bear attack stories compiled by Illinois outdoor writer Larry Mueller and Marguerite Reiss, who spent many years in Alaska and now resides in Lansing.
"Bear Attacks of the Century" certainly bears out Wennen's remark. As these harrowing first-person tales attest, bear attacks provoke exceptional behavior. Heroic friends somehow manage to move mauled victims out of remote areas. Intrepid pilots fly the injured through dangerous storms and mists to the nearest hospital. The victims themselves perform feats of survival they never would have thought possible back home in the La-Z-Boy.
In the same spirit, the reader, desperately hooked on these Spillane-terse survival shockers, ignores every rational impulse and keeps turning the pages, driven by sheer adrenaline. In your corner literary salon, "Bear Attacks" readers can always be discerned by their pale complexion, bug eyes, clenched teeth, shifting buttocks and constant shouts of "Oh Jesus!"
The beasts in question aren't the cute, bouncing black bears of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but the 600-pound grizzlies and 900-pound coastal brown bears that inhabit remote areas of Alaska by the thousands.
These bears have ruled their world for millennia, feasting on berries, salmon, deer, elk, caribou and whatever else they survey from the summit of the food chain.
A combination of high intelligence and hellish ferocity distinguishes them from, say, sharks, who seem like mere mechanical blades with fins by comparison. A bear can sit on a rock and wait you out while you decide which (wrong) move to make, or come at you all at once like a furry, stink-breathing tornado. With a running speed of 35 miles per hour, a half-ton brown bear sow can cover the 40 yards between you and her cubs in a little over a second. How's that rifle arm?
Perhaps more importantly, how big is your rifle? "If a brown bear attacks," says an Alaska public safety officer in one story, "the best thing you can do with a .357 [handgun] is to stick it in your mouth and pull the trigger." Even a heart-shot bear can run another 100 yards and exact terrible revenge.
The book's attack sequences vividly recreate what must be the most extreme trauma nature can visit upon intruding humans. (Squeamish readers may want to turn to the horoscope page.) Typically, a bear will begin an attack by sinking its canines into the buttocks, shaking the victim like a cat shakes a mouse. One hapless hunter, in a rare bit of comic relief, gets his cowboy hat knocked off before the bear goes to work on him. Others end up with hands, feet, ears, even kneecaps bitten off -- or almost off.
Bears also like to bite into heads. Dangling scalps and popped-out eyeballs are a recurring theme here. One victim finds a hooded sweatshirt handy for keeping his head together, literally.
The only defense for an unarmed person, say the authorities, is to play dead. But it's not easy to keep from twitching or coughing with a leg turned around or a mouth full of pine needles. In the book's most agonizing passages, traumatized, pain-wracked victims tilt their head ever so slightly to see if the bears are finally gone, only to attract another round of savage attacks.
Usually, bears attack humans only to defend cubs or lay claim to a kill. When bears attack for food, it's actually a lucky break for the victim, because they like to bury the meat in leaves and wait for it to turn rancid, allowing time for the meal to crawl off to safety and buy into a time-share in Miami Beach.
The prose in "Bear Attacks" is far too lean to push Hemingway-esque machismo or guilt-ridden environmentalism. For the most part, it's straight-up, scary stories around the campfire.
There is, however, a frustratingly contradictory primer on how to deal with bears at the end of the book. Make noise or don't make noise? Challenge or don't challenge? Get away or stay put? The answer, unfortunately, is "it depends," and chances are you won't have time to parse the behavioral niceties of man-bear relations before teeth meet bone.
That brings "Bear Attacks" down to a simple, hard lesson on the unpredictability of life, as embodied in the book's most poignant sentence:
"This had been such a pleasant day, and the meadow was in view."

I could not put this book down. It is true stories of man encountering Brown Bears (largest carnivores on earth) and Grizzly. There is one story of a poloar bear too. This is without a doubt the most exciting and horrifying book I have ever read. I would do almost anything for $1 Million, however, you could offer me $1 Million and I would never go into Alaska bear country, never. The courage of these men is unfathomible. This book will horrify, excite and interest the average reader for sure. Worth the money and time. You won't be able to put it down. The chapters are not long and drawn out either. I recommend this book to everyone, especially those living in "bear country".

Exciting and thought provoking. Very informative, teaches you how to be prepared when in bear country. Teaches you what NOT to do when in bear country. A book of true survival stories you'll never forget! Once I started reading, I couldn't hardly put it down and almost finished it in the first reading! Have read it through, twice. If you like stories of courage and survival, this is a MUST HAVE! Larry Mueller tells it like no one else can.

This you'll want to read in one sitting. Amazing stories of human courage (most of the time). Interesting tips on what to do and not do, but bears are unpredictable, which the stories tell.

I've read dozens of bear books, many of them multiple times. To give an indication of my preferences, Stephen Herrero's work is at the top of my list for a good balance between informative and honest. As a bear biologist, I find his writings to be the most carefully researched and insightful--I learn something new every time I read his work. On a personal note, I've also spent a considerable amount of time in Alaskan and Canadian backcountry and have had several breathtaking, but ultimately benign bear encounters.

_Bear Attacks of the Century_, is, in my opinion, one of the worst bear books I've ever read. It focuses more on guns rather than bears. In the introduction, the authors claim that there is no sensationalization in this book, that the stories are "true." And while these stories may be edited versions of those told by the victims, to say that they are not sensationalized is highly debatable.

There's absolutely no consideration of bear motives in this book, and very little practical advice about how to avoid such encounters. The motto of this book seems to be: "carry a big gun and shoot often." Other bear books offer much more thoughtful and critical insights about how to handle bear encounters. Toting along a gun can be a terrible idea for someone who is not comfortable enough with it to shoot steadily under such high-stress situations. I could compile a companion book for this one that would tell all of the horror stories of people who took a shot and missed, or worse, took a shot and only injured a bear. There is little worse than having to confront a wounded grizzly.

With bear books, I prefer a much more balanced, nuanced consideration of all of the factors involved in bear attacks--what were the motives of the bear, what could the humans have done better, what did they do correctly, how could this situation be helpful to others who might learn from it? These are all very important questions that are ultimately unanswered in this sensationalized book. Bears need to be better understood, not misrepresented as human-hunting beasts.

The authors are writers for such magazines as Outdoor Life, Guideposts, and Reader's Digest. The encounters occurred in Alaska or British Columbia, and the reports are based upon interviews with the participants by Reiss and sometimes, for clarification of detail, Mueller. The participants were then shown, for corrections and approval, the final written version of the encounter as composed by Mueller. I appreciate seeing evidence that the writers know how firearms work and they tell us what was in use or at hand during the attacks. In none of the incidents was pepper spray involved. Not every report includes a date. Dates that are mentioned are in the 1980s and 1990s. The final chapter is an interview with a former Alaska State Trooper on how to be safe in bear country. There is no bibliography or suggestions for further reading.

Bear Attacks of the Century is a collection of stories of bear attacks on hunters. The violent encounters occur for a variety of reasons. Don't expect to be educated about hiking in bear country! The book is not meant to enlighten or educate. The description of the attacks are graphic (and to be honest, somewhat repetetive.) In that sense, it does serve some purpose as a warning to take precautions in bear country.

There are other excellent reads on bear encounters that I would reccommend including 'Mark of the Grizzly' and Stephen Herrero's 'Bear Attacks'. Bear Attacks of the Century is not in the same league as those books. The authors attempt to convey the incredible strength that people find when faced by the savagery of nature, but that message is lost in the blood and guts of the maimings and clawings that are described over and over.

I would only reccommend this if you or have read other bear books and have a morbid curiousity about what it's like to survive a bear attack. If that's the case this book is for you - but pick up Herrero's book if you are looking to get informed.

Hunters will enjoy this book (more than say, hikers). Most of the stories end with the bears being shot and killed and the protaganists crawling away and oftentimes becoming bear hunters in subsequent years after they have healed up.

This book portrays some amaazing accounts of Grizzly bear encounters, with both survival and not accounts. Some very good rules and reccomendations on what and what not to do.

If your going into Bear country a must read.

I enjoyed the well written reports. Anyone considering visiting Bear country should read the book.
drophere

I bought this book for $3.97 at Bass Pro Shop -- they apparently were overstocked. Articles were very well written but apparently in some cases by 1st hand POV and then edited by Larry Mueller and his coauthor. The last chapter which was a Q&A interview with an Alaskan State Trooper on how to avoid bear attacks (or to stay alive) is worth the price alone.

A good selection of stories most all of which were from Alaska. All grizzly/kodiak bears but there was one (scary) story about a Polar bear also. Mueller is not "PC" and is definitely not a "granola type". He believes in going into Bear country "Armed for Bear" (pardon the pun). There were lots of heroic stories and even a few stories of outright stupidity or cowardice. Interestingly, Mueller was forthright about naming both the heroes and the goats.

I really enjoy all adventure stories and I would put this right up there with some of my favorite American Outdoor adventure (actually Misadventure) books like:
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite
Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon and
Shattered Air: A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome