Final Words

From a 'Surprise Encounter' at Glacier National Park

On May 9th, 2026, the following headline appeared:

In the article that followed, the seasoned outdoorsman (pictured outside with a bowie knife, rifle, and Michelob Ultra; described as a lover of “hunting, riding all-terrain vehicles, tubing on a lake or hiking”) was mourned by his father who “said he hoped that park officials find the bear and euthanize it.”

Shortly after its publication, NPS officials ventured into the Glacier National Park backcountry to locate and execute the Bear. Their search and destroy mission was successful. Along the way, the victim’s journal was recovered. The entries leading up to the fatal encounter have been reproduced here in their original form.

5/3: Got a late start today. It’s already hot, the bugs are unbearable, & I’m starving… Seems like it gets warmer every year. I remember coming here two decades ago. It was still cool until at least mid-summer. There were berries and wildflowers everywhere. And almost no people. Now summer is in full swing by the first week of May?! The bushes are dry (if not dead). And it's almost impossible to go more than a mile w/o seeing someone. What is going on??

I’m hoping things might be better in this new zone. I just want to get away from the crowds; to search for solitude. I need space to process the loss of my brother last fall. Fuck. I still see the headlights in my nightmares. Hear him crying beneath their shouting. Remember holding him in my arms on the asphalt as he bled out and they sped off into the night. I doubt that justice was ever served, but at least they installed that sign at the site of his murder. I leave flowers at the base of it whenever I can.

Can I be honest for a second? Hah, of course you can, it’s just me reading this.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s even worth it anymore.

The world is moving so fast and changing so much that I simply can’t keep up. I don’t know where I belong anymore. Rarer are the places that still seem capable of holding me, healing me, & helping me carry the questions that are growing too heavy.

Fewer are the moments when things feel alright again. E.g., watching the moon crest over granite peaks on a silent night, or seeing my reflection stare back from the abysmal portal of an alpine lake, or smelling pine nuts in the breeze, or sucking on the earthy sweetness of loam as I roam aimlessly down the trail, or leaning back against the dark bark of pines so ancient they remember the last ice age, or standing naked in a meadow and screaming at the top of my lungs without a care in the world.

Moments like these make me want to carry on.

And yet apparently many people disagree? Why else would they try so hard to cut every last tree, to pave more roads, to burn more fuel, to create more dust, to make more noise, to fire more shots, maim more creatures, exterminate more species, impound more free-flowing water, develop more land? Or at best do nothing while the people they elect and enable with their dollars do these things. It’s like they are only capable of seeing value in a place if it can be neatly tabulated in the rows and columns of a spreadsheet and plugged into an equation that will produce a positive ROI. It makes me mad. It makes me sad.

Then there’s the fear, which seems to grow worse and worse each year. More walls. More weapons. More distrust. More fingers pointed and accusations hurled and hatred enacted than there are needles on an evergreen. For what? At what cost? I remember the days when you came upon someone else on the trail, exchanged a smile, and carried on. Nowadays people scowl, if they look at all. They carry guns and knives and are quick to place a hand on them for no apparent reason. Do they really think that so much fear will make the world a safer place? Don’t they know that violence begets violence? We see what we want to see in others. Label them a threat and they will become one. We make the world something scary by engaging with it from a place of fear.

Oof! Sometimes I get a little heady out here. Anyways, I’m going to hike up a mountain today. I’m hoping it will be cooler and quieter up there. I’m hoping it will help me clear my mind a bit.

—

Wow! Wow!!! What a view! This place reinvents itself with each passing cloud. I could sit here and watch the world spin forever. The lake stretches out below like a long seedpod, and the mountains caress it with care. Their peaks, polished by glaciers that left us long ago, stare fondly across the valley at each other. If you listen closely to the wind, I swear you can hear them speak. I know that’s a crazy thing to say. But if trees talk, why can’t mountains?

For instance, I cannot speak with the birds, but have spent enough time listening to them to be sure that they are not making such sweet sounds b/c of some benevolent, evolutionary mistake. Clearly they’re communicating meaning! And how wonderful it would be to say hello with a song that they could hear. At the very least, I will resolve to never be so arrogant as to assume that they cannot speak simply because I cannot understand what they are saying.

Can I get a little philosophical again? Let’s say that every individual organism filters the material world around it through its various cells, making up senses that enable each of us to perceive reality and construct meaning about it. The challenge then becomes: how do organisms whose bodies are not physically connected, like cells in a brain or trees in a forest, share meaning with each other? I.e. how can many organisms make up a super-organism that can generate and store shared knowledge capable of benefiting each individual and/or the super-organism as a whole?

Introducing ~language~, coming soon to a temporal lobe near you! When used along with an organ capable of generating sound (which, remember, is just the movement of energy through a medium, so feel free to get creative kids!), language lets you take those little meanings your mind makes up, attach them to sounds, and share them with others. Want someone to grab that thing and bring it to you? Language can do the trick. Want to convince someone to see the thing itself in an entirely new way? Language can do that too.

The point is that it makes absolutely no sense to think that I could ever confidently declare what counts as language and what doesn’t… So, why wouldn’t mountains be able to speak? When one grabs a mass of moving air and starts to squeeze moisture out of it, then hurls it across the canyon to its compatriot, the sound of the inevitable storm always arrives before the raindrops do. With such sounds, the entire area is alerted to what’s coming and given time to prepare. Why discard such a meaningful message as something other than speech? That seems like a rather close-minded way to think.

—

All that thinking made me tired, so I ate something and took a little nap beneath some pines. What a glorious afternoon. I saw some moose and deer. Then I discovered a small spring and sipped some of the most delicious water I’ve ever tasted. It made me realize how bad the water I usually drink has become.

In this moment, everything feels okay again. I love it here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

—

Late afternoon now. Started down in order to get back by dark. Feeling weird—like something bad is going to happen. Saw some fresh tracks atop mine. Been avoiding the main trail and keeping to myself.

—

Fuck fuck fuck. I don’t know what happened. I was walking through a grove of aspens, admiring the way each leaf dances in the breeze, when I heard him start yelling.

“HEY BEAR! HEY BEAR! STOP RIGHT THERE!”

I did as he said. I froze. I stood tall, like I’d been taught, to show that I had no intention of doing harm but also that I am big and scary and not to be messed with. I saw him pull something from his bag. The next thing I knew I couldn’t see. I’ve never felt such pain. It was terrifying. I panicked. I ran in the direction of the horrible smell and tried to make it stop. I felt something soft and lashed out. Everything was burning. When I finally regained the ability to see, finally realized what had happened, his body was laying there before me, limp and wet with blood. I sniffed him, nudged him, tried to rouse him. He did not move.

I got scared. I ran. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I would never go out of my way to hurt someone. I’ve only ever killed to survive, and on those rare occasions I always do so with dignity. I didn’t want to take his life. I don’t know what to do.

5/4: I returned today to check on him, but the place was swarming with people. I watched from afar as they gathered his body and his things, as they took photos and studied the area. I was careful not to startle any of them. I felt the urge to run forth, to explain what had happened, to clarify that it was all a big mistake. But I knew any attempt to do so would only make things worse. Communicating with another species is hard on a good day, and nearly impossible when one or both parties are under the spell of fear.

5/5: The people left last night. So far, no one has returned. Today, I went back to the spot where I met him. I replayed the events from two days ago. I wrestled with how it could have gone differently. I smelled the spot where his body had fallen. I asked the forest to grow a tall and noble tree in this place. I apologized for the accident. I mourned the unnecessary loss of life. He’d done nothing to deserve this. Surely he’d loved this place as I do. I vowed I would continue to love it for the both of us.

5/6: I feel everything today.

5/7: The forest has fallen quiet. The other animals seem on edge. Even the trees are tense. I feel stuck somewhere between fear and self-loathing. I do not know how to make things right. Last night I sat on the shore of the lake and stared into my own eyes until I had lost track of time. I saw myself looking back, eyelids heavy with grief. Did I mean to take his life? I honestly do not know.

Things are rarely so black-and-white.

Perhaps this is justice for my brother. Perhaps this is retribution for the habitat we have lost. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was instinct. Perhaps I am bad. Perhaps this is merely the circle of life. Perhaps all these things are partially true?

Sometime before dawn, in a state of delirium, I began to feel like my brother was nearby. I felt his presence creeping closer and closer, but never like it had in life. It felt like a heavy quilt had been thrown across me. Like the sky would sink a bit lower whenever I looked away from it, merging with its mirror image in the water below and encasing me in an impenetrable cocoon of stars.

5/8: Today, I returned to the mountain. I sat on a rock and stared at everything & nothing. I thought of him. I cried.

5/9: I awoke this morning to the sound of shouting people and barking dogs. I got scared ran in the other direction as quickly as I could, stopping occasionally to leave scat in places that might mislead them. It is nighttime now. I’ve climbed up a cliff and bedded down beneath a small overhang. Down below, the sky shimmers in the lake like a great big bowl of diamonds.

I cannot sleep, but a few clouds are keeping me company as they crawl across the sky. On occasion, they cover the moon, which otherwise throws everything into relief, including my restless thoughts. The mountains stand all around me like wolves who have cornered their prey. They seem to share my regret, to whisper a cool apology to no one in particular as the evening wind smothers each face.

Glacier National Park did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday afternoon. Multiple trails remain closed, according to the park’s website.

Fatal bear encounters are uncommon in the park, which is home to nearly 1,000 bears. Having once numbered over 50,000 across the western half of the contiguous United States, central Mexico, western Canada and most of Alaska, in the last two decades grizzly bears have been reduced to 2% of their former range with a corresponding decrease in population.

Seen as an impediment to westward expansion and settlement, government-funded bounty programs were established with the goal of eradication. Grizzly bears were shot, poisoned and trapped wherever they were found.

According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “By 1975, grizzly bear populations in the 48 contiguous states had been reduced to between 700 to 800. Although significant numbers remained in Alaska and northern Canada, individuals were restricted largely to the confines of national parks and wilderness areas in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Grizzly bears were relegated to these areas in the 48 contiguous states primarily because of limited human influences.”

Credit: Terry Tollefsbol/NPS

A note from the editors: We are deeply saddened about all lives taken through this encounter. Our empathy goes out to the loved ones of all involved. The sky weeps with you, the mountains mourn your lost relations, the waters reflect on it all and wonder when this vicious cycle of harm will be broken.

With special thanks to Ms. Watson’s 5th grade class for helping workshop this one.