In September 1883, near Cheboygan, Michigan, searchers found a grim scene in the woods: Frank Devereaux’s body lying close to a dead bear. The ground around them was torn up for about 20 feet, like a fight had exploded in the dirt and brush. With no witnesses, the best guess from historical accounts was that Devereaux met the bear alone, likely wounded it first, and then got fatally mauled—before the bear finally collapsed and died too. A brutal, eerie reminder of what the “frontier” could mean back then: sometimes you didn’t just encounter wildlife… you didn’t walk away from it….