16 Summer 2021 Applegater
Essay
Learning to fit in, in peace
BY GAY BRADSHAW
Charlie Russell and I worked 10 years
together writing a book about his seven
decades living with bears. He was—and
still is—regarded as the world’s grizzly
expert. We’d talk two, sometimes three,
times a week, batting ideas about things
bear back and forth. Sometimes neither
of us had many words to share. The
ideas we were trying to communicate to
policy-makers and the public about the
real, wonderful nature of bears were so
simple and straightforward, words were
inadequate. Similar to love and truth, bears
don’t need words.
When I called, Charlie would pick up
the phone, and then, unless the weather
was too fierce, step onto the porch of
his cabin in Alberta’s mountains. I’d
hear the screen door bang shut, then a
chorus of voices—a nuthatch chirping,
a jay squawking, or some other winged
neighbor celebrating the day. Other times,
Charlie would tell me what and who he
was seeing, like the recent male puma.
Cougars weren’t uncommon there.
Invisible to the careless eye, their golden
form weaves through grassy contours
below the cabin. One time Charlie called,
bursting with joy, to report that he had
come across a pair of bouncing cougar
kittens at play.
Today’s cougar, however, was a full-
grown adult. He had been hanging around
the cabin, laying low in the shelter of a
nearby grove, obviously ailing.
Charlie decided to help the big cat,
so he put out some meat. He felt for
him. Similar to grizzlies, cougars need to
scavenge on occasion because of foodstuffs
made scarce by white settlement. In this
case, human intervention came as a saving
grace for the injured cougar. The substitute
fare that Charlie put out seemed to do the
trick. In a few days, the cougar was back
on his feet, thin, but capable.
When you wait and watch, and wait,
quiet, and wait some more, Charlie’d
say, you see things you would never see
otherwise. When you wait and listen for no
other reason than to learn and hear nature’s
pulse, you become part of the landscape,
blend in, fit in, and start to pick up on the
inside world of animals. This really was
Charlie’s point and foundational to what
he called “paying attention.” Being able
to fit in with bears and their world meant
listening and looking at what nature served
up, not only studying what is interesting.
One day, I asked Charlie, “After all the
years living so close to nature’s bones, what
is one essential lesson you have learned?”
The jay called and a woodpecker knocked
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a few times before he answered. “If I could
only use one word to describe nature, I’d
say ‘gentle.’ Nature is gentle.”
You wouldn’t think that, given where
he grew up, with the eyes of Canada’s
formidable Front Range staring straight
at him, Charlie would regard nature as
“gentle.” Alberta’s cold weather and harsh
winds are legendary, the kind that make
up round-the-campfire tales of woe and
hardship. He and his pioneer family
certainly had their share of nail-biting
stories like the time his grandparents came
home from the store to find their house
blown off its foundations and sitting
smack in the middle of the creek. Or when
Charlie and his brother, when they were
about seven or eight years old, got caught
up in a blizzard white-out, snowshoeing
from school and almost didn’t make it
home. But, Charlie insisted, nature is
gentle and, he added, unlike a lot of
humans, fair.
Nature is not out to get you, Charlie’d
say. Cougars, wolves, rattlesnakes, bears,
bees, and other wildlife are not out to get
you. They are trying to eke out a living just
like anyone else—except they came here
long before we did. He’s right. Our wildlife
family is what made this valley so beautiful
and peaceful. To restore the peace, we need
Charlie Russell with a wild grizzly.
Photo: Tom Ellison.
to take a page from Charlie’s book and
learn how to fit in with the land, fit in
with the bears, cougars, and all the other
animals who grace this heaven on Earth.
Gay Bradshaw, founder
The Kerulos Center for Nonviolence
bradshaw@kerulos.org
Gay Bradshaw is author of Talking with
Bears: Conversations with Charlie Russell
(Rocky Mountain Books, 2020).
Essays are limited to one per issue
and 500 words. Submit your essay
and high-resolution photo to
gater@applegater.org.