Summary

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wildand Peter Jenkins’s Looking for Alaska, a riveting adventure story of one man’s passion to understand and protect the grizzly bear—and his last foolhardy, violent encounter with oneUrsus arctos horribilis, commonly known as the grizzly or brown bear, is one of the most feared animals on the planet. As its most outspoken protector, Timothy Treadwell tirelessly sought to overturn the perception of grizzlies as dangerously aggressive. It was therefore a media sensation when in October 2003 Treadwell and his girlfriend were fatally mauled by a bear in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, the first such attack in the park in eighty-five years. The horrifying audiotape of Treadwell’s final, frantic screams begged the question: How could this happen?In The Grizzly Maze, Nick Jans, who for years has written expertly and lyrically about the Alaskan wilderness, ventures to answer this question. Based on exclusive access to the killing site and his own and other’s expert knowledge of Alaskan bears, Jans plots out Treadwell’s final expedition and encounter with the grizzly. In doing so, Jans provides a moving and complex portrait of the man known as the Bear Whisperer,” whose controversial ideas earned him the scorn of hunters, the adoration of some animal lovers, and the skepticism of naturalists. The Grizzly Mazealso offers a definitive, close-up look at bears, bear behavior, and our complicated relationship with them. It promises to be the blockbuster adventure read of the season.

Author Biography

Nick Jans is a contributing editor for Alaska magazine and a member of USA Today-'s Board of Editorial Contributors. He has written for Rolling Stone, Backpacker, and the Christian Science Monitor. His books include Tracks of the Unseen: Meditations on Alaska Wildlife, Landscape, and Photography; A Place Beyond: Finding Home in Arctic Alaska; and The Last Light Breaking: Living Among Alaska-'s Inupiat Eskimos.

Acknowledgments	ix
Into the Maze	1	(9)
The Birth of Treadwell	10	(14)
Lifeguard to the Bears	24	(22)
Fifteen Minutes and Change	46	(13)
The Grizzly Maze	59	(17)
The Last Trip Out There	76	(16)
Final Darkness	92	(14)
The World of Fears	106	(11)
Bear 141	117	(20)
Monkey Pajamas	137	(11)
A Mighty Lightning Rod	148	(11)
What Sort of Man...	159	(16)
The Skulls That Are Mine	175	(17)
Grizzly People	192	(17)
Treadwell's Bears	209	(11)
Afterword: The Beast of Nightmare	220	(33)
A Selected Bibliography with Annotations	253	(6)
Index	259

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Excerpts

Into the Maze ?Ready?? pilot Gary Porter?s voice crackled over the headset. From the copilot?s seat I nodded. We dropped in a smooth arc, losing altitude until at last the floats settled in with a hissing thrum. As we taxied down Upper Kaflia Lake I reflected that, considering this was Alaska?s Katmai National Park, where spectacular scenery is commonplace, this was a rather ordinary little valley: a narrow lake maybe a mile and a half long, cradled by a pair of upswept, undulating ridges. Dense clumps of alder and willow started at the water?s edge and clung to the slopes, fading into stone and streaks of volcanic ash. Three weeks ago the land would have blazed with autumn colors; but this was early October, and the land was fading to brown, turning inward, waiting for snow. ?That?s the place up ahead,? said Gary, and I fumbled with the camera gear in my lap. As the DeHavilland Beaver coasted in toward shore, engine silent now, we could see an odd splash of white in the brush. Clad in hip boots, Gary and I swung open the doors and stepped down onto the floats. From there I could read the top lines of one notice: DANGER BEAR-CAUSED FATALITY UNDER INVESTIGATION The other sign was a map crosshatched with shaded areas. Strung from a thirty-foot section of white cord, the two notebook-sized, laminated sheets flickered in the breeze, as if somehow they could contain a sweep of country spanning four million acres.This was the place where Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard had died just five days before?attacked, mauled, and eaten outside of their tents during a violent rainstorm. Come out here, I?m being killed out here! Play dead! .... Fight back! Their desperate struggle for life had been captured on a camcorder?s audiotape, starting with cries for help and fading into high-pitched screams. A day later, would-be rescuers, hoping to find someone alive, had been menaced by bears at close range and shot and killed two, including a thousand-pound male whose stomach was filled with flesh, bone, and clothing. But today, except for those fluttering signs, this grass-crowned knoll, rimmed by a dense curtain of alder, seemed just like the valley: pretty but unremarkable, a tiny island adrift in an ocean of land. As sunlight filtered through high clouds, casting everything in a luminous golden light, I struggled to imagine the horror that had taken place here.Then the soft breeze eddied, bearing the stench of death?a sickly-sweet, overpowering odor that cut through any illusion of serenity: the rotting carcasses of the bears the park rangers had shot. Shards of bear bone and clumps of hide lay scattered around the grassy swale before us, just a few yards away. Scavenging magpies and ravens called back and forth. The nightmare had been real. And this was where it had happened.The questions I?d been wrestling with for the past five days swirled up again, sharp as the scent of carrion. The facts didn?t add up. After twenty-five years living and traveling in bear country, first as a packer for a big game guide, then as a hunter, finally as a photographer and writer, I knew the danger posed by bears well enough. Attacks, while always a possibility, were isolated instances, and experience tended to tip the odds in your favor. If Timothy Treadwell wasn?t experienced, who was? He?d spent thirteen summers among the big coastal brown bears here, and claimed to have an empathic connection to them?a gift, admirers said, that at times approached magic. He gave the bears names, claimed to understand their postures and vocalizations, moved among them as one of their own. Yet, in the history of the Katmai Park and National Monument, stretching back over eighty-five years, not one person had ever been seriously mauled, let alone killed?until Timothy Treadwell. The apparent contradiction was cause enough for head scratching