"The bear which gave so much trouble on the head of the Missouri are
equally fierce in this quarter. This morning one of them, which was
on a sand-bar as the boat passed, raised himself on his hind feet
and after looking at the party, plunged in and swam towards them. He
was received with three balls in the body; he then turned around and
made for the shore. Towards evening another entered the water to
swim across. Captain Clark ordered the boat towards the shore, and
just as the bear landed shot the animal in the head. It proved to be
the largest female they had ever seen, and so old that its tusks
were worn quite smooth."
"Just as he arrived near Willow Run, he approached a thicket of
brush in which was a white bear, which he did not discover till he
was within ten feet of him; his horse started, and wheeling suddenly
round, threw M'Neal almost immediately under the bear, who started
up instantly, and finding the bear raising himself on his hind feet
to attack him, struck him on the head with the butt end of his
musket; the blow was so violent that it broke the breech of the
musket and knocked the bear to the ground, and before he recovered,
M'Neal, seeing a willow tree close by, sprang up, and there
remained while the bear closely guarded the foot of the tree until
late in the afternoon. He then went off, and M'Neal being released
came down, and having found his horse, which had strayed off to the
distance of two miles, returned to camp. These animals are, indeed,
of a most extraordinary ferocity, and it is matter of wonder that in
all our encounters we have had the good fortune to escape."
The grizzly was introduced to the world by Governor DeWitt Clinton of
New York, who appears to have taken his information from the Journal of
Lewis and Clark. In the course of an address before the Literary and
Philosophical Society of New York City in 1814, he completely
misinterpreted the real character of the grizzly and popularized a
number of errors that not only were believed then but have survived to
this day. The real grizzly is a distinguished character; but the grizzly
as commonly described by tongue and story--well, "there ain't no such
animal."
Governor Clinton in discussing the work in store for the coming
naturalists said, "There is the white, brown, or grizzly bear, the
ferocious tyrant of the American woods--it exists, the terror of the
savages, the tyrant of all other animals, devouring alike man and beast
and defying the attacks of a whole tribe of Indians." Few people realize
to what extent these inaccurate words have discouraged outdoor life and
how enormously they have contributed to the output of fictitious nature
writing.