So it was my (pleasant? gruesome?) surprise yesterday to stumble upon this new film Grizzly Night, which is based on a true story, famously recounted in Jack Olsen’s nonfiction book Night of the Grizzlies (1971). I’m a sucker for a bear-attack story. This one is actually quite good.
Is that poster an homage of sorts to the Jaws (1975) poster, with its impossibly gigantic Great White Shark being replaced with an impossibly gigantic Grizzly Bear? I think so. Both creatures have jaws agape, about to devour a comely young maiden. And why not? Jaws is one of the great, seminal animal-attack movies of all time.
I first encountered Night of the Grizzlies in 1980 while backpacking in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area of central Montana, south of Glacier National Park. I was with a group of cavers exploring the ice caves there and had sprained my ankle, which took a week or so to heal. While sitting around I discovered the Night of the Grizzlies paperback in their little stash of reading material. (Cavers visited that area for several summers in the late Seventies and early Eighties exploring the ice caves; people would leave books they brought for others to read.)
It freaked me out. One night I ate some hard candy in my tent and later heard a loud snorting/snuffling outside and was convinced a griz was coming to eat me. I was clutching a fistful of watermelon-flavored Jolly Ranchers like a dowager whose pearls were about to be snatched. The book and movie tell the tragic story of how two young women were attacked on August 12, 1967 by two different grizzlies. Although it’s been all these years since I read it, I remember it as a balanced, sober account of the tragedy, not exploitative or cheesy. Its narrative spans the entire summer, establishing the woeful policies that led to the attacks: Grizzlies were fed garbage nightly at one of the nearby chalet hotels and garbage dumps that were supposed to have been closed were allowed to operate. The movie, on the other hand, focuses just on the night of the attack and the day after.
As opposed to The Salt Path (see posts below)—now infamous for its allegations of fraud—this “Based on a True Story” appears to be quite trustworthy. The attacks were of course investigated at the time and were a major news story. While the film version may have fudged some of the personal interactions of the characters based on real people, the particulars and logistics of the night of the attacks seem accurate and aligned with the historical record.
As gruesome as bear attack/mauling stories can be, I hardly think it’s a reason to avoid the backcountry of such gorgeous parks as Yellowstone, Glacier, and the Tetons. Grizzlies rarely attack people. But when they do, it makes the news. Or the paperbacks.