Grizzly Man

Timothy Treadwell’s 13 years spent in the Alaskan wilderness seemed to have no religious purpose. However, the experience Treadwell had is somewhat comparable to other religious texts or traditions.

Treadwell’s experiences with Alaskan bears most closely relates to Native American or pre-historic animal worship. Both these religious groups and Treadwell live in harmony with the bears and have extreme respect for the creatures. Treadwell gave the animals human-like qualities, which is something that Native Americans and other animal-worshiping groups may have done. The main difference, however, is that the religious groups live separately from the animals and are dependent upon them for their basic needs. These groups live in harmony with the bears but do not cross the metaphoric line from human world into animal world. In addition, these groups do hunt the bears and use them for their basic everyday needs. Treadwell, oppositely, crosses this imaginary line and lives completely in the bears’ environment, but he would never dream of harming any of the bears, even for survival purposes.

Another religious parallel surrounding Timothy Treadwell’s experiences with bears is Genesis. In the Creation story, animals and humans were not equal. Man was given reign over all other creatures, and Treadwell challenges this. Treadwell was living completely with the bears, which puts man and animals on the same level. However, Treadwell still felt dominance over the bears (perhaps as though he were the Alpha bear). In the introduction of the film, Treadwell speaks about controlling his fear and acting superior to the bears so they respect him and be more comfortable around him. He even shouts out, “I will be master!”, which shows his superiority above the bears.

Timothy Treadwell’s experiences with Alaskan bears can be interpreted in many ways. From a religious standpoint, although Treadwell did not have religious motives, his experiences could be seen as spiritual because they closely relate to several other religious traditions and texts.