Living with Grizzly Bears

The other night I was watching the Discover Channel when a show came on about Timothy Treadwell and his life with grizzly bears in Alaska.

This story is about a man who moved to Hollywood and tried to get into the Hollywood scene. He was actually the runner up for the part of the bartender in Cheers. After he lost the part his life went into a spiral and he got into drugs and alcohol. He almost died of an overdose and decided to make a major change in his life.

He moved to Alaska and lived with the grizzly bears during the summer months. In the winter he would travel to schools and promote conversation and environmentalism. After one of his talks a lady wrote him and soon became his girlfriend who started to go to Alaska with him.

After the 13th year his luck he and his girlfriend went to the airport but there was a discrepancy about the price of the airline ticket so he went back to the bears. But the bears that he knew went into hibernation and more aggressive bears which he did not know moved into the area to catch salmon before they went into hibernation.

Tragically he and his girlfriend were killed by a grizzly bear. There is an audio of the attack (which was not played on the show) of him and his girlfriend being mauled. He yelled to her to run away right before he died but she did not survive.

Part of me embraces his zest for life and his courage. The other part of me says that if you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burned. But Neil Young did sing that it is “Better to burn out, than rust away…”.

He wrote a book about his experiences and I need to go and pick it up.

The web site about him is:

http://www.grizzlypeople.com/home1.php


Jim