Hugh Glass (
c. 1783 – 1833) was an American
frontiersman,
fur trapper, fur trader, hunter, and explorer. Born in
Pennsylvania to
Scotch-Irish parents, Glass became an
explorer of the
watershed of the
Upper Missouri River, in present-day
Montana,
North Dakota,
South Dakota, and the
Platte River area of
Nebraska. Glass is best known for his story of survival and retribution, after being left for dead by companions, following his mauling by a
grizzly bear. Not unlike the experience of his fellow
mountain men,
Jedediah Smith and
Grizzly Adams, he lived to tell the tale of his near death bear attack. The life of Glass has been adapted into two feature-length films:
Man in the Wilderness (1971) and
The Revenant (2015). The retellings portray Glass, who in the best historical accounts made his way crawling and stumbling to
Fort Kiowa, in South Dakota, after being abandoned without supplies or weapons by fellow explorers and fur traders during
General Ashley's expedition of 1823.