May 18, 2018 | Leave a comment Next time your boss bawls you out for something that really wasn’t your fault, or your computer refuses all attempts to to make it cooperate, despite your best endeavours, spare a thought for Hugh Glass, a man who surely had one of the worst days at work of all time! Glass was born around 1783 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the United States, to parents who had emigrated from Ireland, and he died in 1833, after being attacked by a party of Arikara warriors, a Native American tribe from North Dakota. That is about as much as can be said about Hugh with any real certainty, as he left no personal written account of his life, but one particular adventure that he undertook, has become the stuff of legend. As legends tend to ripen in the retelling, what follows needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, although as tales of his daring escapades first appeared in print in 1825, during his own lifetime, one can surmise that his extraordinary story is largely based in fact. By the 1820s, Glass was working as a fur trapper, explorer, and guide, in an area now known as Montana, and North and South Dakota. In 1822, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, founded by General William Henry Ashley, placed an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette and Public Advertiser, inviting men to join them on a fur-trading venture that would entail navigating the Missouri, Grand, and Yellowstone Rivers. Hugh responded to the advert and was duly hired. The party departed in the spring of 1823. On 2nd June the expedition was attacked by Arikara warriors, and several members were killed. Glass was wounded, having been shot in the leg. Undeterred, the depleted company pressed on, and despite his injury, Hugh was able to keep up with the group. By August they had reached the forks of the Grand River in present day Perkins County, South Dakota. It was at this point that Hugh Glass experienced a bad day at work. While out hunting for game, he came upon a grizzly bear with two cubs. Alarmed by his presence, the bear attacked. Glass had no time to pull out his rifle, and so had only his hunting knife with which to defend himself. Hearing the commotion, the rest of the hunting party ran to his aid. By the time they got there it was all over. Hugh was in a bad way. The teeth and claws of the bear had caused terrible injuries; he had a broken leg, his ribs were visible through severe lacerations and air could be seen bubbling through blood in a deep throat wound. However, to the astonishment of all present, next to him lay the body of the bear. Amazingly, Hugh Glass had fought an adult grizzly bear and won, just! A Contemporary Illustration of The Attack Unknown. This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. Despite his heroic effort, Hugh’s injuries were so extreme that he was not expected to survive. Two volunteers, called Fitzpatrick and Bridges, agreed to stay with Glass until he succumbed to his injuries, at which point they were to bury him and subsequently rejoin the main group. Whilst waiting for Hugh to die, they began digging his grave. What happened next cannot be verified, but when Fitzpatrick and Bridges caught up with the main party they confirmed that Glass had died. However, they claimed that they had been interrupted by an Arikara warrior attack, and had been forced to flee before they could inter him. They had in their possession his knife, rifle and some other items of his equipment. Hugh Glass was not dead, however; merely comatose. When he eventually regained consciousness, he found himself to be lying next to a freshly dug hole, completely alone and without weapons or equipment. Aware that Fort Kiowa, the nearest settlement, was some 200 miles away, Hugh nevertheless determined that the only course of action available to him, was to head in the direction of the fort, which was located on the Missouri River. Despite incredible pain, festering wounds and severe blood loss, he set his own leg and tied a stick to it to act as a splint. Wrapping himself in the hide of the deceased bear, that his companions had laid over him to keep him warm, he began to crawl his way towards civilisation. Realising that his injuries were likely to become gangrenous, he allowed maggots to eat the dead flesh of his wounds, successfully preventing infection from spreading around his body and killing him. Glass sustained himself by eating berries and rattlesnakes, the latter of which he killed with rocks. On one occasion he was even able to feast on a bison calf, after having frightened off the wolves who had just killed it. Well over a month after he had set off, Hugh finally reached the Missouri River, where he fashioned a raft out of logs and floated downriver. In October 1823, Glass finally arrived at Fort Kiowa, some eight weeks after being attacked by the bear. Surely one of the most remarkable cases of survival through sheer will and determination. Unsurprisingly, it took Hugh a number of years to recuperate from his injuries, but he was nonetheless eventually able to resume his career as a guide and fur trapper. He also determined to track down the two men who had left him for dead, in order to seek retribution for them having abandoned him in such dire circumstances. However, he found that Fitzgerald had since joined the army, and so he was unable to take revenge against him, as to do so would have meant harming a soldier of the United States Army, a crime which would have resulted in severe punishment. He did, however, manage to recover the rifle Fitzgerald had stolen from him. Bridger, it turned out, was still with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and soon found himself in the uncomfortable position of being confronted by his abandoned charge. Owing to his comparative youth, however, Glass chose to forgive him, and instead of reducing General Ashley’s personnel by one, Hugh himself re-enlisted with the company. A monument to Hugh Glass can be found on the southern shore of Shadehill Reservoir in Perkins County, South Dakota, close to the spot on which he took on a grizzly bear and won. Hugh Glass Monument John Lee Lopez This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Sources: https://lflank.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/think-youre-tough-the-story-of-hugh-glass/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Glass