Summer of the Grizzly

Gene Olson was Reference Librarian at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, University of Alberta, Edmonton.

Summer of the Grizzly is a thoroughly entertaining book on a number of levels. It is exciting when read as a detective story, enlightening as an easy-to-read beginner’s manual on bear behavior, and thought-provoking as a probe into policy questions on the conflicting rights of man and nature in our national parks.

Originally published as L’Ete du grizzly in 1982, Vacher’s gripping story of a series of three bear attacks on the outskirts of Banff townsite in 1980 has been translated for English readership by Western Producer Prairie Books some five years after the original events. The La Presse review of the original edition noted its suspense and terror. The translation seems to have retained this element in such graphic passages as the first-chapter description of one of the victims: “…staggering like a drunk toward him, drenched in blood, with a horrible mass of flesh where his face used to be.” This should not suggest that the book is solely and deliberately gruesome. Its humane qualities are equally represented in the sympathetic treatment of the frustrations and the agony of decision-making faced by park officials, biologists, and the general citizenry in coping with the attacks.

It must be emphasized that this book is a story based on the events of eleven days around the 1980 Labour Day long weekend in Banff. During that time three bear attacks resulted in two towns-people and two tourists being mauled — one fatally. Names of the principal people involved were changed for unstated (presumably compassionate or legal) reasons, thus allowing the author leeway in presenting his impressions and opinions in dramatic and narrative terms. The events, however, correspond with contemporary news reports in the Calgary Herald and, interestingly enough, a feature article on other bear attacks that appeared in an issue of Alberta Report which must have been written just before the Banff episode.

Vacher begins his tale in midstream with a graphic description of one of the maulings and then backtracks to investigate the others. By way of background, he includes information on bears and bear behavior, the problem of garbage disposal in Banff, and the conflict in catering to both tourist and wildlife needs in the Parks. He concludes his story with the day-to-day detective work in identifying and trapping the marauding bear.

This story should be read with some caution, since time and circumstance have altered the Banff of 1980 described in this book. As well, understanding of bear (especially grizzly) behaviour has cumulated over the years into a solid body of scientific knowledge. The most authoritative, up-to-date work on this topic is Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance (Nick Lyons Books-Winchester Press, 1985) by Stephen Herrero of the University of Calgary. Recognized as the world’s expert in this field, Herrero was involved, but not named, in Summer of the Grizzly as the biologist who performed the autopsy on the killer bear. In his own book, he concluded that the 10½-year-old grizzly must have been a garbage feeder for a long time to have reached the remarkable weight of over 760 pounds in so short a life. In Herrero’s report on the attack, he identified the garbage-handling procedures in the park as a precipitating cause for the bear’s presence in town and its aggressive behavior. Vacher’s book can be considered a feisty introduction to the topic, but it does not, nor can it, resolve the man-bear dilemma facing Canada’s mountain parks. That is the job of park administrators, who will have to provide enlightened policies and priorities, adequate safeguards and public education, and reliable enforcement of practices and procedures. For these decision makers, Herrero’s book will better provide their informational needs.