Death & Survival in Glacier National Park: True Tales of Tragedy, Courage, & Misadventure

by C.W. Guthrie, Dan Fagre, Ann Fagre

Sheer cliffs, avalanches, turbulent rivers, cold lakes, severe weather, grizzly bears - these are just a few of the ways you can die while visiting Glacier National Park. Since 1910 when the park was established, 296 people have perished within Glacier's boundaries, and many more somehow survived close calls with death. Death & Survival in Glacier National Park recounts their true tales, as well as stories of the brave and often heroic search-and-rescue professionals who put their lives on the line so that others might live.


Written by a local Glacier National Park expert.
Jam-packed with gripping stories of courage and survival against all odds.
Featuring the most complete chronology of all 296 deaths in Glacier National Park, including names, ages, locations, and causes.
Includes maps, charts & graphs.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Glaciers, Survival

314 pages, Paperback

Published May 23, 2017

Reviews

[Kurt Papke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Context: I am an avid backpacker with experience in Northern Minnesota winters and Southern Arizona summers including the Grand Canyon. I’ve studied a similar book “Death in Grand Canyon”, and have spent a week hiking in Glacier.

“Death and Survival in Glacier National Park” is encyclopedic in it’s scope. It covers all types of mishaps in the park, each chapter on a different hazard category. At the end, it includes a complete list of all deaths and their causes since the inception of the park.

One of the best parts about this book is that everything is told through stories - it’s not a dry compendium of facts and figures, but tries to get us to empathize with the victims by giving us their background history, how they got into trouble, and what is known about their struggle to survive. In addition the book is filled with photos (black & white) of the people and places in the stories.

I have mixed feelings about the book’s Introduction story about a Grizzly attack, when only 10 of the 246 deaths in the park are from bears. Yes, people should be concerned about them, and they make for a great story, but OTOH it deflects attention from falls and drowning which account for 110 deaths. The story engaged me emotionally, I get why it is the lead story, but I just wonder whether it is best to frighten people with bear stories. But maybe that’s why some people read this book, to be frightened a bit, and they won’t be disappointed! In fact, some of the bear attack stories later in the book are incredibly graphic - they scared the heck out of me!

I would have liked to see more analysis of what people did wrong in the chapters on falls and drowning and weather-caused deaths. Obviously, people who get too close to a river bank should not have done so, but I kept waiting for a bit more analysis as to the mistakes the people made, and what they should have done differently. The Exposure chapter has a good example at the end of a pair of hikers who survived. Their tale has some good lessons for everyone, but I would have liked more info about the equipment that they had (it mentioned in the story that the gear was a factor in their survival - what was it?)

The book is succinct and readable in a reasonable amount of time, but some of the stories lacked enough context to draw out my interest. The Grand Canyon book went into a lot more depth, but told fewer stories, for good or ill. Chapter 6 on homicides and suicides goes into quite a bit of depth, but ends with a one-paragraph suicide story. The latter omits details easily available on the web, such as the victim’s 20 years of service in the Navy.

A nice touch: the Lovely Last Walk was a brief but sweet description of the death of a 92 year-old woman of natural causes. I would have liked to know more about her!

Overall, I can highly recommend this book to people who are interested in the risks of going into wild and dangerous places, and those that are specifically getting ready for a trip to Glacier. When you get done reading this book you will know more about the things to worry about (and not worry about!) than the vast majority of the folks who visit the park. I am very glad I had the opportunity to read the book (it was supplied by the publisher), and I look forward to my next trip to Glacier National Park!

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm becoming strangely well-read in this tiny subgenre, books about every possible way to die in a national park. I like these books for several reasons, probably none of which are actually good. How to not die is surprisingly interesting, and that's a subject that can best be illustrated with examples of what not to do. Reading a bunch of these books will give you a sense of the individual character of the parks. Where Grand Canyon has heat, Glacier has cold. Where Yosemite has waterfalls to fall from, Glacier has the Going-to-the-Sun road. Also, and perhaps most importantly, Wednesday Addams was my hero as a child and I'm still morbid.

As far as this particular entry in the subgenre goes, it's not my favorite. There's too many non-fatal incidents, that pad the page count without necessarily adding anything to the discussion. In some cases, those incidents can be interesting and instructive. Just because nobody's been killed by a mountain lion in Glacier so far doesn't mean you shouldn't be concerned about them and know how to react if needed. But if you already have several falls from mountains, you don't need to add more. And I felt like the actual safety advice wasn't quite as clear and concise as it needed to be. It's still an interesting read, of course, but there's better books out there that tell similar stories.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book details every death in Glacier National Park since it became a park. Despite its dedication to being comprehensive it mostly (though not always) avoids feeling tedious or like just a listing off of events. The book also gives a lot of history of notable settlers and Native Americans around the time of the founding of the park.

Unless death statistics in the park have drastically changed from 2017 (when this book was published) to 2022, our tour guide lied to us because he told us the leading cause of death in the park was exposure. Actually, falling is the leading cause of death (67 people have died from falling since the park was created), and exposure, with 6 deaths, has caused fewer deaths than bear attacks.

My favorite chapters were the murder chapter, and bear attack chapter. As of the writing of the book, 10 people have died in Glacier due to grizzly bear attacks (and 136 people have been injured). The portion about a bear mauling Smitty Parratt in 1960 is the most gruesome. As for murders, there haven't been too many but luckily there is one case of the classic "someone pushes someone else off a cliff".

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Worthwhile Struggle?

While some of the incidents are very interesting, they are mired in a book screaming for proper editing. Disjointed, wandering, impossible to gain any rhythm, it is a very tough read. Too many stories include too many extraneous details, while other include too few.

[Tammy AZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being from Montana and familiar with Glacier Park, this was an interesting read. Each type of death is covered in a chapter describing such deaths as natural causes, falls, animal attacks, exposure. This isn't a voyeuristic view of death, but rather more of an encyclopedic look at how dangerous and relentless Mother Nature can be.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be one of the better written books about death in national parks. (Of the 3 I’ve read) It also focuses on incidents that managed to avoid tragedy. And of course, now I’d really like to visit Glacier National Park. If you plan to visit, this is a pretty good resource on safety in the park.

[Linda Wolcott · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many examples in this book of how people suffer and die when they do careless or stupid things in dangerous places. What you come to appreciate are the incredible people who try to rescue them, or recover the body. Gravity doesn’t allow much room for error.

[Brad Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read. Being an outdoorsy person, I enjoyed reading the stories of those who rescue. I really enjoyed all the different stories and it was written well.

[Augusta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! I had a hard time putting this one down.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated that this included stories of survival as well as misadventure. The story of the mountain lion chasing the end of a measuring tape was delightful.

[Devin O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Especially a part where they mentioned how we should take people’s actions in the context of their times when considering why the early rangers acted how they did.

[Sean Dodds · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a good read overall. It got a little bit old reading parts of the book where there wasn’t much of a story just listing off people who died and not much of a story to go with it.

[Sasha Rosetta Kladar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't wait to go back. Tho I am now better informed of the many dangers of Glacier and surrounding North. Rip Angel Star Makes Cold Weather. Such a beautiful name. One I'll never forget.