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Grizzly
Bears In the North Cascades
A selection of historical accounts 
Following
excerpts from Range
of Glaciers
by Fred Beckey (2003)
Chapter 8, Along the 49th Parallel: The
Northwest Boundary Survey, 1859-1863
In
a section titled: Difficult, Untracked Valleys: Custer's Nooksack
Reconnaissance
P181
and 182
"On June 19 (1859)....the men made camp below the lake's outlet under a
group of firs. That evening, the
hunter-guide killed a small grizzly bear amid 'steep and almost perpendicular
cliffs opposite' the camp. The bear tumbled over brush and rock, Custer reported: 'The
Indians brought it to camp in Triumph, 4 men carried it on 2 poles.
This was of course the signal of another enormous feast.... it continued
vigorously through the whole night, until the last vestige of the carcass had
disappeared.' Custer found the
bear's meat coarse and not very palatable, 'except the tongue, which is really
an excellent morsel.'"
P
182 (also in June 1859)
"With little or no apprehension, the party saw as many as four
grizzlies 'prowling about in the bushes of the steep cliffs opposite our camp.
They seemed to watch us closely,' wrote Custer....The next day, Custer
sent two Indians to the Tamihi Creek depot with animal skins.
He remained at Tomyhoi Lake to explore the area."
P
184
"In July (1859), Custer gave Kennerly a goat skin, and he noted in his
journal that the explorer had seen a grizzly bear southeast of Chillawack
Lake." (Dr. Kennerly was
studying the natural history of the
region.)
Chapter 14, Prospectors and the Mining Boom
P
344
"...Packers from Sumas and Deming were lured by predictions of
prosperity made by Charles Bagley and Hamilton Wells, who ventured far up
the Nooksack's north fork in 1891. Less
than two years later, the State Trail was constructed to Ruth Creek, and packers
could find profitable work. When
Wells discovered the Silver Tip vein (named for an old grizzly living near
Hannegan Pass) near milepost 18 on the trail in 1896, the news quickly brought
other to the Mt. Baker district."
Chapter 17, Managing the Mountain Lands: The
Forest Service and Park Service Era, 1895-1950
P
405
In a section titled "Sheep" In a paragraph referring to sheep
bands in the Lake Chelan, Entiat, Teanaway and Napeequa River areas
"Herders
generally lost a horse per year and always lost sheep or their way to the high
country. The animals either wandered off or were killed by bears or
coyotes, and most herders killed every bear they saw, including grizzlies."
Following
excerpts from Valley of the Spirits: The Upper Skagit Indians of Western
Washington
by June McCormick Collins (1974)
P
52
"The Upper Skagit hunted deer, elk,
mountain goat, black bear (may be brown or cinnamon), grizzly bear, beaver,
snowshoe rabbit, fisher, raccoon, and land otter."
P
53
Women prepared meat for eating by cutting it into pieces and boiling it. They
used the waterproof coiled baskets for cooking.
Jessie Moses explained the procedure as follows: 'When my father killed a
bear, he said .....
P
54
"The
bear appears to have a special place in Upper Skagit folklore, a common motif
being his appearance in human guise. In
these stories, there are resemblances to Western European fairy stories with
bear characters. In some the bear
is shown as benevolent, in others as harmful.
The people living far upriver gave a special treatment to the bear,
cutting off the head, braiding the flesh, and placing the head in the woods,
presumably to ensure the continued supply of the bear..."
P
70
A principal craft was the weaving of mountain goat wool with or without dog
hair. (Mountain sheep, once present and hunted for their wool, had disappeared
from this area at some time before my informants were born.)....Wool was also
sometimes mixed with bear fur in making blankets..."
P
72
"Women wore a shirt of bearskin or deerskin which was open down the
front and sewn up the sides but not under the arm, so the sleeves hung
open."
P
146, in a chapter titled The Spirit World
"The following is a partial list of spirits, beginning with those
associated with animals. These are
bear, grizzly bear, dog, eagle, hummingbird, raccoon, skunk, one species of
spider ..., wildcat and wolf.
P
147 and 148
Bear was a spirit which gave hunting power.
One informant's father had had this spirit.
In dancing during the winter ceremonial, he would dance right into the
fire and not be injured because of this spirit.... There is some implication
that men who have this spirit tend to have large feet and deep voices as
bear-like characteristics....I have already mentioned in passing the special
attention given to the bear by the Upper Skagit.
In a myth the bear and the ant have a contest to see how long the
alternating periods of daylight and night would be."... (entertaining)...
" The ant won the contest despite his smaller size. The bear then went into
a cave for three months each winter....This same myth is also told with rabbit
in the character of the ant and with grizzly bear or beaver in the character of
bear."
P
148
"A folktale about the bear, narrated by Lucy Williams, pointed to a
common theme, that bears may become human and visa versa....."
P
150 More stories about bears...
"Several Upper Skagit men had spirits associated with the grizzly bear,
which, like the animal spirits already described and like most other land
animals, was of great assistance in hunting.
One man, John Price, who had this spirit, was said when armed only with a
hunting knife to have killed a grizzly bear in combat...."
Following
excerpts from Lewis and Clark Among the
Grizzlies
by Paul Schullery
P
143 and 144
“As Seton and later writers reported, historical evidence of GBs is indeed
sparse to nonexistent in the lower Columbia Basin area, though somewhat better
the farther you get from the river….In my documentary study of the early
historical record (1833 – 1897) of wildlife in the Mt Rainer area, I was
struck by the extreme scarcity of 19th century observations of grizzly bears in
that part of the Cascades…Without question, the historical presence of grizzly
bears in the Cascade Range north of Mt Rainer has been satisfactorily
confirmed... In his study of the early historical record in the area around
North Cascades National Park researcher Paul Sullivan quoted early reports from
actual sightings…. The most hides traded in any one year at Thompson’s
River, BC was 11 in 1851. Apparently 4 hides turned up at
Fort
Nisqually
near present
Tacoma
… over a period of years…. Sullivan found that much higher numbers of hides
came in to the post at
Fort
Colville
, in eastern WA…. The peak year in the GB hide trade there was 1849 when 383
hides came through….
Fort
Nez
Pierce, near present
Walla Walla
had it’s peak year in the GB hide trade in 1846 when 32 hides came
through…”
Click
here for more about observations.
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