Treadwell, Herzog, and the Tendency to Romanticize Nature

The documentary Grizzly Man closely chronicles the story of Timothy Treadwell, the Alaskan bear-hermit, as he attempts to connect on both a spiritual and physical level with the Alaskan wilderness and specifically the grizzly bears that roam Kodiak Island.  For Treadwell, it isn’t enough to live in nature near Alaska’s bears.  He has to physically interact with them in order to protect and “become” a bear.  At the end, it’s revealed that Treadwell and his partner had been killed in 2003 by a grizzly bear that had become desperate for food.  In meeting his demise, Treadwell had finally become “part of a bear”.

Grizzly Man is easy to discredit as simply representing the ideals of a bipolar, disillusioned outcast, however, there are general themes that Treadwell’s life represents that raise questions about our own ideals of nature.  Perhaps one of the major points that Treadwell’s life raises is that our society has a tendency to romanticize our relationship with nature.  When we see the foxes in Grizzly Man, our hearts inflate with affection for the “cute thing”.   We all would love to curl up next to a red fox in the Alaskan wilderness.   This gut reaction to want to curl up and embrace nature is part of being human.  Our ancestors grew up hunting and gathering off the land.  However, today, many of us lack an understanding of the pure power of nature, and the hardships life in nature brings.  Today, we have a tendency to romanticize nature as being a pure, friendly sanctuary just as Treadwell did.   This romantic reaction contrasts with Herzog’s belief that nature is a hard, corrupt, violent place.  Throughout Grizzly Man, he makes a point to make us know his beliefs about how we should interact with nature.  Instead of “returning to nature”, we should give nature as much space as possible.  Nothing good can come out of man attempting to return to nature.   While both Herzog and Treadwell love nature and deeply appreciate its power, they have deeply contrasting views of how man should interact with and protect it. 

One place where these contrasting views of nature are deeply apparent is in the environmental movement.  Perhaps more than anywhere else in our society, the community that makes up the environmental movement romanticizes our relationship with nature.  Instead of trying to “decouple” from nature, and leave as much space for it to grow freely, many environmentalists assert policy changes that would encourage us to return to our origins.  Cities, nuclear energy, natural gas, and economic development are the enemies of the Alaskan bears.   Instead, man should return to living a rural life powered by distributed energy sources such as wind and solar power.   The origins of such beliefs are interesting.  “Back to the Wild” environmentalism originated with the first industrial revolution in the mid-19^th century.  Romantics saw the changes and destruction that was associated with the rise of the steam engine and textile mill and started to argue that the only way to undo this destruction was to return to our early agrarian society.   In stark contrast to the romantics within the environmental community are ecological pragmatists.  Instead of viewing nature romantically, they argue that the best way to preserve nature is to create as much room for her to grow freely through technological innovation.  Nuclear energy uses far less energy than wind power for example.   While eco-modernists don’t necessarily share Herzog’s ideals that nature is violent, they agree that man should limit interactions with her. 

The contrasting beliefs within the environmental movement are similar to the contrasting beliefs of Herzog and Treadwell.  While Treadwell looks at nature in a romantic way, Herzog looks at nature as a corrupt, violent place.  Similarly, the majority of the environmental movement looks at nature from Treadwell’s perspective.  A small minority known as the eco-pragmatists or modernists looks at the preservation of nature from the perspective of “we have to decouple from it”.   While these people’s ideals strongly contrast, they all share a passion for preserving nature.  This is what is critical to recognize.