Hugh Glass

In 1823, the most famous grizzly bear attack of all time left Hugh Glass struggling for life on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Abandoned by his comrades, he crawled two hundred miles to the nearest trading post and then set out on an odyssey of revenge, only to forgive the men who had deserted him. The story of Hugh Glass has provided fertile ground for novels, biographies, stories, comics, and an Oscar-winning film, but the real man has remained a mystery. Glass’s legend sprouted from the tiniest seeds. Little is known about his origins, and not even a sketch remains to document his physical appearance. Like most mountain men, he might simply have faded into history. Instead, Glass’s encounter with the bear sparked the greatest process of western myth-making ever, as a series of writers built on his story to illustrate their vision of the American character. Glass’s legend is still growing today, magnified through bestselling books by John G. Neihardt and Frederick Manfred and films like Man in the Wilderness and The Revenant. Historian James D. McLaird traces the threads of the legend back to the earliest evidence and revisits what readers know—or think they know—about Glass and his adventure. Along the way, he examines the story itself and how it reflects our changing view of the West, the development of the fur trade, and the complicated relationship between humans and grizzly bears. The result is a comprehensive biography of a larger-than-life character whose fantastic story of survival has fired imaginations for nearly two hundred years. Hugh Glass: Grizzly Survivor is the fifth book in the South Dakota Biography Series, which highlights some of the state’s most famous residents, and it is sponsored by the City of Deadwood and the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission.