Humans and bears - Wild encounters

[brotherbear]

The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal by Enos Mills.
Trailing the grizzly without a gun is the very acme of hunting. The gunless hunter comes up close, but he lingers to watch the bear and perhaps her cubs. He sees them play. Often, too, he has the experience of seeing wilderness etiquette when other bears or animals come into the scene. The information that he gathers and his enjoyment excel those obtained by the man with a gun. 
Roosevelt has said and shown that the hunter whose chief interest is in shooting has but little out of the hunt. Audubon did a little shooting for specimens. Wright had as many thrills with the camera as with the rifle. Adams was far happier and more useful with his live grizzlies than he was killing other grizzlies. Emerson McMillin was satisfied to hunt without either gun or camera. The words and sketches of Ernest Thompson Seton have given us much of the artistic side of the wilderness. Dr. Frank M. Chapman explored two continents for the facts of bird-lore and in addition to his books prepared the magnificent bird-groups in the American Museum of Natural History. Thoreau enjoyed life in the wilderness without a gun. But John Muir was the supreme wilderness hunter and wanderer. He never carried a gun. Usually he was in the wilds alone. He spent years in a grizzly bear country. But the wealth of nature-lore with which he enriched his books make him the Shakespeare of nature.
The man without a gun can enjoy every scene of nature along his way. He has time to turn aside for other animals, or to stop and watch any one of the countless unexpected wild-life exhibitions that are ever appearing. Then, too, he hears the many calls and sounds, the music of the wilds. The wild places, especially in grizzly bear land, are crowded with plants and with exhibitions of the manners and the customs of animals, and are rich in real nature stories being lived with all their charm and their dramatic changes. Reply