One With the Tiger. Steven Church
horribilis, or the “horrible bear.” Even its origin is monstrous and mysterious, the beast’s very existence associated with terror.
When we describe a particularly gory accident or scene of violence, perhaps the death of someone who jumped into a tiger’s or polar bear’s cage, or even the scene of Janey Craighead’s death, we might describe the scene as “grisly,” a homophone that, at least for me, always conjures up an image of a “grizzly” bear. The word “grizzly” may descend from both “grizzled,” meaning “gray,” or old, as well as from the Old English, grislic, meaning
. . . “horrible, dreadful” from root of grisan “to shudder, fear,” with cognates in Old Frisian grislik “horrible,” Middle Dutch grisen “to shudder,” Dutch griezelen, German grausen “to shudder, fear,” Old High German grisenlik “horrible,” of unknown origin; Watkins connects it with the PIE root *ghrei- “to rub,” on notion of “to grate on the mind.”
I try it in a sentence: Stephen Haas shuddered with fear before the horrible, dreadful bear and the grisly scene that awaited him the next morning.
I BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND the way language might shape this moment, and perhaps how it continues to shape the second-day stories of this incident and others like it. But it is this last root meaning, this connection from Calvert Watkins, editor of The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, that has planted itself deep within me: this idea that the animal and its name, the sign and signifier, each mean to grate, to grind, and worry the mind. A scene, an image, a story is grisly and grizzly because it lingers, because it takes over your thoughts at times, lurking with others in the recesses of your consciousness. It is grisly because it never leaves, because it haunts you, attacking the quiet moments.
I REMEMBER AS A kid hearing about the attacks in Glacier National Park and, though I couldn’t find it in my research, I know I’ve seen a clip from some horror-movie adaptation wherein a monstrous rampaging grizzly attacks a woman in a mummy-style sleeping bag. He picks her up as if she is light as a leaf and throws her against a nearby tree. I can still remember the images, the scene playing out in my mind. And though this was something of a special-effects exaggeration designed to make the bear seem even more monstrous, it wasn’t much of an exaggeration.
After finally charging the camp in the early morning light, the bear dragged Julie Helgeson in her sleeping bag out into the brush, where she was quickly mauled and killed as her campmates listened.
The grizzly bear was that dark malevolent force—unseen, unpredictable, and unstoppable; and one of the last great predators in North America, one of the few species that we hadn’t yet hunted to extinction. Though bears and mountain lions have now made a comeback in many parts of the country, most of that hadn’t begun yet when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s.
The Glacier Park bear’s behavior troubled park rangers and scientists because they hadn’t ever heard an account wherein the bear clearly seemed to be stalking and hunting humans. Bears weren’t supposed to act this way. They didn’t hunt people. Or at least they weren’t supposed to hunt people, not according to previous research. But both bears that night exhibited unusually aggressive behavior that was difficult to reconcile with what humans thought they knew about grizzlies in the park, proving ultimately how little we actually knew about the predators around us.
Native American cultures have long acknowledged the powerful symbolism of the bear, recognizing its wisdom, courage, power, and strength, as well as its unpredictability. Some cultures also see the bear as a healing maternal spirit with powerful medicine, a peaceful solitary mother figure who is, nevertheless, capable of great savagery and aggression when provoked or threatened. The bear is never just a bear. It is always something greater and more wild, more sublime and powerful than humans can perhaps ever fully understand.
Q: Mr. Haas, can you describe what you remember of the attack?
I don’t sleep very well most nights. I slip in and out. I hear things, you know. I always thought I’ d hear a bear coming, that it wouldn’t be like a shark attack that you don’t see or hear, that it would be like a tornado and sound like a freight train coming . . . but I didn’t hear anything until the bear was on top of us. It’s hard to describe . . . the tent fabric ripping and the fiberglass poles snapping. You don’t really know what’s happening. But you can smell the bear.
What did it smell like, Mr. Haas?
Like wet earth.
The earth?
I got tangled up in the tent fabric, trying to get out. I fell. I remember hearing Janey scream . . . it was horrible. I don’t know what happened after that. I tried to go after her. I’m sure I did.
Was that when you hit your head?
My what? Oh, right. My head. I guess so. Like I said, I don’t remember much after that.
Were you injured by the bear?
I don’t know. I don’t remember how I hit my head. I want to believe that I was trying to fight the bear off, trying to get it away from Janey, you know. That would make a better story for you. For her daughter. I wish I could tell Brandi more. I wish I knew more. The doctors said it looked like I’ d hit my head on a rock.
Why do you think the bear went after Janey instead of you?
It would be good if I said that I wish it had been me. But that would be a lie. I mean, how many of you would volunteer to be attacked by a bear? Who does that sort of thing? I wish Janey hadn’t been attacked, wish she hadn’t died, and I wish that bear didn’t have to die . . . but I wouldn’t trade places. And neither would you. I’m just being honest.
BEAR CONFESSION
There’s another truth in this: I’m somewhat bear-like, ursine in my personality and presence. I am an apex predator, even if I try not to act like one most of the time. I can be the roaming bear cruising the tundra, grazing and fishing, but not the tiger stalking, the cat pouncing, or the wolf circling. I do not hide well, and I’m not interested in bullish aggression for the sake of aggression. My size is my shield and my show, the protective bubble you do not want to break. Like a bear, you’d have to provoke me to fight. But I don’t really know what I might do or of what I’m capable in such situations. Sometimes this frightens me. Sometimes I’m afraid I will be tested.
At 6'4" tall and weighing in at around 260 pounds, I sport a torso like a beer keg and stout legs that are too short for my height; my ankles and wrists are surprisingly thin—probably a gift from my mother, but I wear XXL shirts and have close to an eighteen-inch neck. I can’t really grow much facial hair, but I have a scar on my right cheek and, to some people, I look big and intimidating, especially when I buzz my hair down to stubble.
In bars or at parties in high school or college, when the alcohol was flowing, I was often mistaken for the alpha male type who wanted to play-fight or wrestle like juvenile bears at a salmon stream. But I don’t like to wrestle. I don’t play-fight. I don’t want to slap or punch and pretend that violence is an appropriate substitute for affection. Hugs are okay. But I don’t even want to yell and scream when I’m drinking. I don’t want to be jostled or touched or shoved too much, especially by strangers.
When I lived in a house full of guys in college, my roommates would often wrestle and roughhouse with each other. I asked one of them why they never included me in their games and he said, “Because you’ll hurt us.”
I don’t know if this was true. It might have been. To me violence was not play. Part of this was undoubtedly due to the lessons I learned growing up big. When I did the same things other kids did, they had different consequences. When I roughhoused, I hurt people, even if I didn’t mean to do it. And often because of my size I was a target, a test for some kids to see if they were brave enough