A grizzly attack on Mount Penrose

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from author’s John Fraley’s book “Wild River Pioneers” recently re-released by Farcountry Press. The Hungry Horse News will begin running a series of enthralling tales of the early days of the Flathead Valley by Fraley.

More than a century ago, Philadelphia surgeon and Boone and Crockett Club member Charles B. Penrose shot a white grizzly in a high, untracked backcountry basin below the mountain that now bears his name. This adventurer’s gunshot set in motion a chain of fate, bad luck, and violence that came together in the naming of Middle Fork mountains and streams, and by extension, the Great Bear Wilderness.

Back in 1907, the entire area of northwest Montana was lightly traveled and mostly wilderness. A small party of topographical surveyors of the U.S. Geological Survey, led by Arthur Alvord Stiles, was the first group of officials to survey what is now the Great Bear Wilderness and the South and Middle Forks of the Flathead River. Stiles and his party were equipped with camping equipment and map-making instruments, all transported by a pack-train of mules. The party cut a small trail as they traveled; he believed that theirs was the first pack outfit that had ever entered the area, and he was probably correct.

The survey party entered from the west side of the Flathead Range near the present town of Hungry Horse, and traveled upstream about twenty-five miles in the South Fork of the Flathead drainage to the Middle Fork divide. Stiles and his party most likely followed the Emery Creek-Hungry Horse Creek drainages and then the ridge between Margaret and Tiger Creeks to reach the top of the divide that separates the South and Middle Forks of the Flathead River.

The Penrose brothers, part of a prominent Philadelphia family, accompanied the survey party into the backcountry. It’s hard to imagine a more influential and adventurous trio of brothers. Dr. Charles B. Penrose, 45, was a respected Philadelphia surgeon and a governor-appointed member of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. A brilliant man, he received a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard while completing his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Penrose stood 6-feet, and was known for his athletic build and his toughness: he had survived tuberculosis a decade before.

Boies Penrose, 47, was an influential U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania who lived in Washington, D.C. Both of these men were among the 100 original regular members of the Boone and Crockett Club and friends of President Theodore Roosevelt. Another brother, Spencer Penrose, 42, of Colorado, was along for the adventure. Spencer was a millionaire many times over, gaining his fortune in mining and real estate.

The Penrose brothers were camped that first evening a short distance from the survey party near the top of the Flathead Range on the edge of the present Great Bear Wilderness. The country here at 7,000 feet drops off in both directions from the range backbone in steep and rocky ridges, with high-elevation basins of more moderate terrain.

Back at the survey camp, Stiles had some extra time on his hands. It was about 4 p.m., and the weather hadn’t been ideal for surveying and mapping. So, eager to please his important guests, Stiles rode over and offered to take Senator Penrose out for a hunt in a spot not far from where the surveyors had probably established a small “spike camp.” But Sen. Boies Penrose and his younger brother were too tired from their recent long, rigorous climb, so they declined. Dr. Charles Penrose, who was in great shape compared to his brothers, eagerly volunteered to go with Stiles to the basin where members of the party had seen game about a mile and a half northwest along the spine of the range.

Stiles and Penrose mounted their horses and negotiated the broken, relatively open country around the head of the drainage and then by way of a small saddle to the pretty little basin. The basin sat at about 6,500 feet on the flank of a big mountain that rose another 1,500 feet above it. The two men tied their mounts to stunted, krummholz conifers. Then they separated, looking for game around opposite sides of a small ridge.

Penrose walked for about half a mile along the rocky ridge through scattered snags dead from past fires and through beargrass, stunted trees, and alpine meadows. Above the basin, he hunted across a slide that held masses of boulders. Suddenly, he saw a light-colored grizzly bear approaching him from about 75 yards. The bear hadn’t seen him because it had been nosing the ground. Penrose took aim with his 7mm Mauser and fired a shot at the bear. Penrose fired twice more as the bear stumbled and rolled about 200 yards down the ridge. The grizzly’s body finally came to a stop by a small creek.

Penrose made his way down the ridge along the edge of the boulder slide. He reached the little creek and admired the dead bear, the “whitest” grizzly he had ever seen. The bear appeared to be a yearling and a yearling grizzly can look pretty big without a larger bear to compare it with.

The doctor was elated. What a trophy he would have to take back to his home in Philadelphia. He leaned his gun on a rock and began to take out his knife to skin the grizzly. Then, his eye caught movement on the ridge across the creek just 30 yards away. Looking up, Penrose saw two more white grizzlies, a large sow and a yearling, probably the sibling of the bear he had just killed. The hair on the sow’s back bristled, she growled, and then charged full speed at the startled doctor. The sow charged Penrose like a dog, keeping its head low, and boring in on his lower body.

Grabbing his rifle, Penrose shot at the bear twice as it charged toward him. One of these bullets broke the bear’s hind leg near the paw. Penrose was able to shoot the bear in the left shoulder just as the bear pounced on him.

The 170-grain bullets from the Mauser didn’t seem to affect the bear. The big grizzly grabbed the doctor’s left thigh in her teeth and shook him “like a terrier does a rat.” Penrose fell backward into the creek with the grizzly clamped onto his leg. The bear then bit and crushed his left wrist, dropped that, and bit and shook his left breast area. Suddenly, the bear stopped mauling the doctor but stood over him growling. After playing dead for a few seconds, Penrose grabbed for his gun again, which was lying beside him near the stream...

Would Penrose survive? Read about it next week, or order the book from Farcountry Press at 1-800-821-3874.