The Grizzly by Enos A. Mills (1915)

Name: The Grizzly
Author: Enos A. Mills

"The Grizzly" by Enos A. Mills is a naturalist's synthesized account of the grizzly bear, drawn from decades of unarmed field observation across Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, arguing throughout that the grizzly is a reasoning, curious, and fundamentally peaceable animal rather than the ferocious man-eater of popular legend. Mills opens by documenting the grizzly's intelligence: a bear carefully engineering a rock barricade while digging out prey, a cub hiding a ham skin by sitting on it when surprised, another hammering a fish tin against a stone to empty it, and a captive grizzly outwitting a black bear to steal soaked hardtack by floating it across a pool. He recounts a personal experiment in which three men tried to corner a grizzly for a photograph, only to find the bear had doubled back and trailed them undetected. Extended trailing narratives—especially the pursuit of "Old Timberline" near Long's Peak—show bears deliberately concealing tracks by leaping between rocks, wading upstream, and doubling back to ambush pursuers, leading Mills to conclude the grizzly reasons rather than acts on instinct alone. Substantial sections cover reproduction and family life: tiny cubs born in January–March dens, a mother nursing and disciplining her cubs, cubs imitating their mother's postures and digging, playing in water, eating pond-lily bulbs, and eventually being weaned and pushed out around age two and a half to establish solitary home territories. Mills describes grizzly home ranges (such as "Old Timberline's" eighty square miles), their trail networks, "news stations" where wild animals leave scent information, and claw-marks on trees, which he argues are not territorial boundary markers as commonly believed. He details the grizzly's omnivorous diet—roots, berries, fish, insects, carrion, occasional livestock—and famous outlaw cattle-killers like "Old Mose," killed in 1904 after thirty-five years evading hunters. Long passages cover hibernation biology, den construction, post-hibernation lethargy, and expert commentary from J. D. Figgins on comparative mammal hibernation. Mills devotes chapters to raising two orphaned cubs, Johnny and Jenny, whose antics—racing, stealing berries, playing with a rocking chair and umbrella, interacting with his dog Scotch—illustrate grizzly personality, before they are sent to the Denver Zoo. Similar affectionate accounts follow for "Miss Grizzly" at a sawmill, James Capen Adams's bear "Ben Franklin" (who defended Adams from an attacking grizzly), and Philip Rollins's bears "Miss Jim" and "Mr. Bessie." The book's central polemic, developed through extensive quotation of Muir, Wright, Hornaday, and others against Lewis and Clark, Umfreville, MacKenzie, and Governor DeWitt Clinton, is that grizzlies fight only in self-defense and have never been documented attacking unprovoked humans or eating human flesh—their reputation for ferocity stems from early explorers misreading curiosity as aggression and from the desperate fighting of animals cornered by armed hunters. Mills closes with material on Yellowstone's garbage-pile-corrupted bears, physical description and taxonomy of the species, and reflections on the grizzly's supersensitive hearing, capacity for play and aesthetic appreciation, and its status as, in his view, the preeminent animal of North America.

By Enos A. Mills · First published 1915 · Genre: Nature Writing, Non-Fiction, Wildlife Documentary · 15 chapters · 55,708 words

First lines

One autumn day, while I was watching a little cony stacking hay for the winter, a clinking and rattling of slide rock caught my attention. On the mountain-side opposite me, perhaps a hundred yards away, a grizzly bear was digging in an enormous rock-slide. He worked energetically. Several slabs of rock were hurled out of the hole and tossed down the mountain-side. Stones were thrown right and left. I could not make out what he was after, but it is likely that he was digging for a woodchuck.

What this Textopian page supports

The Grizzly is listed on Textopian as a novel by Enos A. Mills, dated 1915 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Work type: Novel
Author: Enos A. Mills
Date: 1915 CE
Language: English
Genres: Nature Writing, Non-Fiction, Wildlife Documentary, Adventure, Environmental Literature
Length: 55,708 words
Structure: 15 chapters, 582 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Similar titles

Genres

Nature Writing — The book focuses on the behavior, intelligence, and life of grizzly bears, emphasizing observations of their natural habitat and interactions.
Non-Fiction — The work is based on real-life experiences and observations of grizzly bears, providing factual information about their behavior and ecology.
Wildlife Documentary — The narrative serves as a detailed account of wildlife observation, akin to a documentary style that captures the essence of grizzly bears in their environment.
Adventure — The author's pursuit of grizzly bears and the challenges faced during these encounters create an adventurous narrative.