Customer Reviews

The Grizzly Bear: The Narrative of a Hunter-Naturalist

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An early masterpiece of bear literature. It is easy to see why so many subsequent authors refer to, and liberally 'paraphrase' Wright's work. Almost a hundred years after it was written, it is amazing to realize how much later writers based their work on this book. Wright chronicles his rise from enthusiastic bear hunter to preservationist who regrets his earlier bloodthirst. He debunks some of the bear myths of his day, and while some of his conclusions have proven incorrect with time, he is frequently on target. Any one who has admiration for the grizzly should have this in their library.

Well, I wouldn't call it literature....although it is a good read. I had to cringe at all the parts where the author and his hunting crew actively hunted bears and routinely blew them to bits, and it hurt to hear the description of one male bear, who had been resting in the sun, suddenly getting his teeth shot out and spine broken by a bunch of gung-ho bear killers. I found myself getting angry a lot while reading this book. Still, I recognize that there is valuable information in this book and the sheer fact that it has remained in print since the 1800's speaks to its enduring worth. It is well written and easy to read. I found the story of the real-life Grizzly Adams particularly intriguing. I still find it sad that so many people felt the need to kill so many bears; just another testament to the destruction wrought upon nature and wildlife by - you guessed it - the human race. Thank god Mr. Wright got a conscience later on in life; better late than never, I suppose.

This was first published in 1909. William Wright lived from 1856 to 1934. As a youth he was influenced by a book on James Capen "Grizzly" Adams written by Theodore H. Hittell and published in 1860. Wright became an avid bear hunter (killing "well over a hundred grizzlies" (249), first, briefly, with a Winchester .44, then with a single shot Winchester .45-100 shooting a 600-grain swaged lead bullet over 100 grains of powder), hunting them from about 1884 till around 1897, after which he stopped hunting but continued to study and photograph the bear. In the book he says he had studied the bear intensely for 25 years, from Mexico to Alaska. He includes pictures taken during this time.

Wright's book is divided into three parts:

Part I, the shortest, sets the stage. Wright gives a short biographical sketch of his life, then extracts from the journals of Lewis and Clark their references to the grizzly, and follows that with accounts given by early writers after Lewis and Clark. After this, there is a chapter about Grizzly Adams, which includes a letter from the author Hittell answering some of Wright's questions about Adams. The first part ends with a short chapter on the scientific classification of bears.

Part II contains twelve chapters, ten of which are on hunting experiences and the final two of which are on experiences photographing bears at night in Yellowstone. In chapter XI of part II, Wright tells of an incident where he and two dogs were in defense-attack against a grizzly and, not having his rifle, Wright was able with repeated stabs, seventeen of them, to kill the bear with a 3-inch bladed folding knife.

Concerning hunting, in a later chapter in part III, on the bear's vitality, Wright says he almost never fired outside of 50 yards and that he shot the bear in the center of the shoulder. "The ball rarely passed out on the opposite side, but unless it was a very large bear, both shoulders were broken and, of course, under such conditions, the animal could not run half a mile and then maul the hunter to death." (251)

In that same later chapter, Wright mentions having hunted with a .30-30 and being unsatisfied with its power. "If I were to hunt grizzlies again," he says, "I would take the .35, which I consider the best rifle for large game at the present time." (251; he's referring to either [1] the still current .35 Remington, introduced in 1906 for the Remington Model 8 semi-auto rifle, later also used in pump actions, other semi-autos, bolt guns, and lever-actions, or [2] the now obsolete .35 Winchester, introduced in 1903 for their 1895 lever-action rifle - and I believe without hesitation it's the Winchester cartridge; see Cartridges of the World for reference.)

Part III is on the character and habits of the grizzly as Wright understood them. He includes a discussion of the legendary ferocity and vitality of the bear and argues against the legends. He quotes, with complete agreement, Dr. William Hornaday of the New York Zoological Society: "The grizzly's temper is defensive, not aggressive; and, unless the animal is cornered, *or thinks he is cornered*, he always flees from man." (234) Concerning a grizzly's vitality when shot, Wright points out that a grizzly runs towards the shooter in rage after being hit, not away from him in fear, as a deer would do. As mentioned above, Wright would shoot to break the shoulders, and through that aimpoint the bullet would enter the body of the bear. "I took great pride," he says, "in disproving the theory that a grizzly could not be killed at one shot." (251)

Just as a point of reference, the year 1909 marked the final months of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. Wright has only one reference to Roosevelt, where he mentions an incident Roosevelt relates in his 1893 book "The Wilderness Hunter" about a French trapper who suffered a grizzly attack while cooking dinner in camp. The Dr. William Hornaday, whom Wright says is a friend, quoting him more than once in the book, was a prominent person in Roosevelt's life, and is referred to quite often in Douglas Brinkley's 2009 book "The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America", which I reviewed earlier. William Wright is not referred to in Brinkley's book.

In the Forward to the 1977 edition, Frank Craighead, Jr. says of Wright's book that "there are few points on which I would take issue with the accuracy of Wright's observations or his interpretations of what he saw." Paul Schullery, editor of a 1983 selection of Roosevelt's writings, called "American Bears" (which I found only after reading "The Grizzly") compares Roosevelt's writings on the bear to Wright's, saying in his introduction that until Wright, Roosevelt's were the "finest contribution by a single author to our knowledge of bear habits and hunting." He praises Wright again further on, mentioning by title, as he had in a footnote to the previous reference, Wright's books "The Grizzly" and "Ben, the Black Bear", the second also published, it seems, in 1909.

- Contents -
* Part I. Historical
I. Autobiographical
II. Early History - Lewis and Clark
III. Followers of Lewis and Clark
IV. James Capen Adams
V. The Scientific Classification of Bears
* Part II. My Experiences and Adventures
VI. My First Grizzly
VII. Five in Five Shots
VIII. Grizzly Gourmets
IX. Trailing
X. A Charging Grizzly
XI. At Close Quarters
XII. My First Trip to the Selkirks
XIII. The Selkirks Revisited
XIV. The Unexpected
XV. A Spring Gun Avoided
XVI. A Photographic Expedition
XVII. Flashlighting Grizzlies
* Part III. Character and Habits of the Grizzly
XVIII. Description and Distribution
XIX. Characteristics and Habits
XX. Food and Feeding
XXI. His Fierceness
XXII. His Vitality
XXIII. Fact versus Fiction
XXIV. Conclusion
Index