Old periodicals: The most famous bear attack in the world

Illustration of the Huge Glass attack from an old newspaper - Public Domain.
Illustration of the Hugh Glass bear attack from an old newspaper - Public Domain. 

The most famous bear attack is not in YouTube but was portrayed in the movies The Revenant and Man in the Wilderness. The original tale comes from the short chronicle "The Missouri Trapper" published in 1825 in the section "Letters from the West" of The Port Folio magazine. This text recounts the return of Hugh Glass alive to Fort Atkinson after everybody assumed that he was killed by Arikara Indians.

(According to the Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, "Arikara" could mean "horns", "elk people", or "corn eaters" - "horns" for their custom to wearing two horns, probably in the way of this Crow Chief).

Working for Andrew Henry in an expedition to the Yellowstone River, Hugh Glass was attacked by a grizzly. The old chronicle says that a "white bear" came from nowhere and grabbed him by the throat taking a chunk of flesh that the animal shared with its cubs.
  
Rescued by his companions but almost dead, Glass was left with two guys that later abandoned him. He returned to Fort Kiowa, a painful crawl of 350 miles. After recovery, Hugh Glass went on a hunt for the men that left him behind. 

Catching up with them, he pardoned Jim Bridger because of his youth and couldn't touch John S. Fitzgerald because this man had signed up with the US Army. Glass only got back his old rifle.

But there was more in the adventurous life of Hugh Glass than the popular story of the bear attack.
  • He was captured by Jean Laffite off the coast of Texas and became a pirate for 2 years.  
  • He lived years with the Indians after being taken by the Pawnees.
  • Indians shot him in a leg in 1822.
  • He was part of the famous "Ashley's hundred" mountain men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. 
  • He served as hunter for the US Army in Fort Union, North Dakota. 
The Arikara Indians eventually got Hugh Glass in 1833. He was killed with two fellow trappers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chekika: Forgotten spot of Everglades National Park close to Miami

Image
During our last visit to Chekika ( map ), we found closed roads and dilapidated buildings. This was our fourth time here. Little by little, nature is coming back. Wilderness taking over what was always its property.            The closed entrance to the Grossman Hammock -  License our images here .   Everglades National Park closed indefinitely the Chekika Day Use Area in 2013. They claimed budget constraints. One year later, Chekika was on the news when a juvenile Nile crocodile was removed from the area - the animal was captured in a canal north from the Grossman Hammock. Two others were caught in 2009 and 2012 further to the east. You know the script with invasive species: they escaped, or someone released them.  The Everglades already have the mighty Pythons running wild. I don’t want to imagine the River of Grass ruled by “man-eaters” crocodiles that can reach up to 17 feet. That would be madness. 
More »

Google search and the little blog

Image
Many small websites are going dark like the sands of the desert at nightfall -  License our images here .   Little blogs are dying. They are jailed in a dark and remote dungeon of Google organic search, the non-index dungeon. The mighty gatekeeper, like Saturn , is devouring its children. Betrayed for money, the good old-fashioned blogs are the collateral damage of their "helpful" content update. Long gone is that 2004 when Loren Baker wrote: Google likes Blogs. Blogs do well in Search Results Listings on Google. This is because Blogs contain fresh content and are richly interlinked, despite their relatively small audiences. Some would go so far as to say that Google over-represents Blogs. (Source:  What if Google didn't like blogs? ") That's ancient history. A jump to 2022 shows a different picture. According to Sandy Maguire: The Internet is dominated by a few big websites. Out of social, the amateur opinion is vanished. (Source: " Why Is the Web So Monoto
More »

Ernest Hemingway's "Oklahoma": "All of the Indians are dead (a good Indian is a dead Indian)"

Image
Page of an edition of "Three Stories & Ten Poems" from Ernest Hemingway.  Here we go with Hemingway poetry. Harsh. But we know what to expect from his sharp journalistic prose and  iceberg theory .  "Oklahoma" was published in 1923 in Three Stories & Ten Poems   - affiliate link to Amazon . The name says it all: the "Oklahoma" of the Choctaw language - means "red people" -, and Oklahoma the state seen through its genesis, the Indian Territory .  American Indians or Native American - whatever suits you, but many of them prefer the first name - in their new way of life.   Now to the poem.  All of the Indians are dead (a good Indian is a dead Indian) Or riding in motor cars— (the oil lands, you know, they’re all rich) Smoke smarts my eyes, Cottonwood twigs and buffalo dung Smoke grey in the teepee— (or is it myopic trachoma) The prairies are long, The moon rises, Ponies Drag at their pickets. The grass has gone brown in the summer— (or is it
More »