Grizzly Yellowstone                        click to enlarge

Piracy! You don’t often associate it with Yellowstone National park but it is a little known fact that piracy is still practiced along the Yellowstone river today. On nights when the moon is full and thin clouds scud along the mountains tops you can often see a shadowy silhouette of a three-masted East Indiaman turned pirate ship, tacking into the wind as it glides down the Yellowstone looking for a rich merchantman to capture.

This particular ship has been renamed the Quedagh Merchant after Captain Kidd’s famed fighting ship in the hopes that it would bring its present crew good fortune and large prizes. Swag and booty for all and the pleasure of the chase was their goal and the crew was constantly on the lookout for the next conquest.

As this was a large ship being 171′ long and 30′ wide with nearly 10,000 square feet of sail it took a crew of large, burly sailors to handle her. The only creatures big enough in Yellowstone to sail her was a crew of the largest, meanest, most foul-tempered grizzlies that could be found along the banks of Yellowstone river. She sailed with a skeleton crew because try as they might they could never bring her up to a full complement of crew members. Being constantly short-pawed as it were, every sailor mattered, as the success of their ventures was decided by whether or not they could muster enough fighting bears to overpower the ships they attacked.

The Captain of this vessel was a terrifying giant of a bear known by the name of Captain Rend. Weighing close to 1200 lbs. and standing 11′ tall at the shoulder, armed with five razor-sharp claws on each front paw and a willingness to use them without hesitation, he was perfectly suited to command this vessel and her unruly crew. He demanded absolute and total obedience at all times and the slightest infraction was met with immediate punishment, swift and brutal. This could range from denying the accused his share of the swag and booty, to being subject to 10 swipes of the captains claws across their hairy backs. Keelhauling, which is the dragging of the condemned under the ship by a rope tied to the front and back legs, a favorite pirate punishment, was not possible on the Quedagh Merchant due to the shallowness of the river and the effort it took to drag a 800-900 Ib. bear under the ship. These sailors were strong but even they had their limits.

A sailors greatest fear however weren’t the punishments mentioned above for there was a far worse fate that could happen to him. Something they feared above all else, and that was marooning. Marooning was the act of being left alone on a deserted island without food or water until the condemned perished alone in agony and despair. It was one of the only ways, beside personal combat, to keep a gang of murderous wretches in line and so it was used, but sparingly. You had to do something pretty disreputable to get marooned. But what we have here is a pretty disreputable bear.

Named Astonishment Jones because of the look he got on his face whenever he was accused or caught doing something wrong, he finally stepped over the line, his crime, sneaking down into the hold and guzzling what was left of their meager store of rum. The Captain had absolutely no patience or mercy left for a pirate that would steal from his fellow shipmates. He ordered him marooned at the next island they came to. Put ashore on this little isolated island in the middle of the vast Yellowstone river with just enough food to give him time to reflect on his fate, he watched in astonishment as the ship slowly vanished into the evening mists, his former crewmates flashing their claws and growling curses at him, before disappearing into the night.

We’re not certain whether he remained there until the end, or if he was picked up by another ship passing by, or if he decided it was better to just attempt the long swim towards shore in the hopes that he could make it before he lost his strength and drowned. As of this time the fate of Astonishment Jones is unknown, but what is known, is that on a dark night when the moon is full you can see a great ship, manned by a crew of blood-thirsty grizzlies, climbing the masts to unfurl the sails, hauling on lines, their deep throated chants floating across the still water, sailing majestically down the Yellowstone river on the hunt for its next victim. A rich merchantman perhaps, or a sloop carrying a full cargo of buffalo parts to the market where the river and Yellowstone lake join, or even the unwary kayaker, caught out alone, who didn’t believe in the Pirates of the Yellowstone river.