The Bear Whisperer

Jul 16, 2025

The memories of my father are like hauntings, floating around me. Most are from my early years; by adolescence, he was thousands of miles away. We often went years without seeing or talking to each other.

Still, I try to piece together who he was, and what we were to each other. I’ve romanced those fragments of memory, filling the gaps with imagination. My stories of him always carry a sense of longing. I can see him, but he’s not there. I can feel him, but not touch. What remains is a mix of blurry inaccuracies and yearning. I find comfort in the patchwork memory has made, telling myself that despite all the absence, I really am my father’s daughter.

One story stands out like a favorite fairy tale. I’ve returned to it often, taken by its magic. It was 1958, and I was six years old, visiting him in Glacier National Park, Montana, where he lived.

He was a park naturalist. He’d just returned from several days in the backcountry, studying something—I never quite knew what naturalists actually did, but I believed my father was good at it. What impressed me the most was, I knew he could talk to animals, and that they talked back.

When he came home, there were red scratches scabbed over on both cheeks. I stared at them, a little afraid.

“Did you fall on branches?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I was making friends with a bear.”

I thought of my Goldilocks book. The bears in that story were make-believe. I’d seen real ones in Glacier. A cub once stole the kitchen rug from the clothesline and carried it up a tree. Another time, a bear woke us in the night, trying to break into the trashcan.

“How do you make friends with a bear?” I asked.

“I stayed in a small cabin, just big enough for one person. Every morning, I’d see the bear through the window, and he’d see me. I was always excited to see him.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“No. Bears don’t like getting too close to people. There was no screen on the window, but I wasn’t worried. I spoke in a soft voice and asked him how he was doing.”

I could see it perfectly, my dad talking to the bear in his calm voice. Before my parents divorced, a raccoon he called Wilbur used to visit our porch on a regular basis. He’d sit out there and talk to her, too.

“Did the bear answer you?” I asked.

“In a bear sort of way,” he smiled. “He stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air, trying to catch my scent, to decide if I was a threat.”

I pictured my dad leaning on the windowsill, talking to the bear.

“He looked like a young one,” my father said, “and I was happy for the company.”

“But did he get mad at you?” I asked, pointing to the scratches.

He shook his head. “No, not mad. I think he just got brave.”

“Every morning, he came by at the same time. I’d drink my coffee, and we’d talk. Sometimes he stood up, tilting his head, as if trying to understand me. Then he’d head off into the forest.”

“Where did he live?”

“Probably a cave on the mountain.”

My little-girl mind thought about the bear leaving home each morning, like he was going to work, but he was really going to see my dad. “So,” I said. “How did you get the scratches?”

“Well, that was from the bear,” my father said, leaning closer. “On the last morning, I was packed up and ready to go home. I sat by the window, waiting, drinking coffee. Right on time, the bear came. I said good morning and told him I’d be leaving, going back to my family. It was as if he understood. He stood up and came close, closer than ever before. The sun was shining. I felt safe, comfortable. I smiled at him. And that’s when it happened. So fast. He raised both arms and placed a paw on each side of my face. It startled me, and I pulled back. That’s how I got the scratches.”

“Did he want to hurt you?”

“No. He was curious, just like me. I forgot for a moment that wild things are wild. I got too close, and I got hurt. But I don’t think he meant harm. I think he just wanted to greet me.”

“What did the bear do when you got scared?”

“He got scared too. We both remembered who we were.”

I didn’t understand that for a long time. How do you forget who you are?

“Do you think he’d know you if he saw you again?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

And that was the story. The bear. The scratches. It’s what I remember most from that summer. My father wasn’t afraid of animals. He knew how to talk to them, and that made me proud.

In late August, he put me on a bus with my sister. She’d return to Glacier; I would stay with my mom. That’s how things were now. My siblings lived with him. I lived with her. Mom and I were next to a city park, but there were no special animal there. Once, I told the bear story to a boy at school. He called me a liar. After that, I kept it to myself.

Years later, as a young woman, I dreamt about my father and the bear, but in the dream, I was the bear. I reached out and placed my hands on his cheeks. He pulled back in fear. And my hands left long, deep, red scratches. I felt so sorry.

I think my father belonged to the wild in a way he didn’t belong anywhere else. He devoted his life to studying and protecting the natural world. I don’t know if he got close to other people or not. Sometimes I wonder if he was afraid to get too close to me.

I never got to ask why we drifted apart so early in my life. I wish I could tell him now: I’m proud to be the daughter of the animal whisperer, and that I know how to whisper to animals too.

Then, I think, we’d be brave like the bear, and we’d both remember who we are.

Dear and precious reader, thank you for being here and for reading my story. I originally posted this story to a blog in 2019. I woke up thinking about it today.

This is for you,

Susan J Tweit

. I know you have spent a life time, loving the plant-kin around you and educating your communities about the wonder of the wild.

And to some of the others who are lovers and protecters of the wild:

Thank you all for being here. ~Stephanie