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Bear Face Dodge:
Ira Dodge is one of the last of the mountain men. He lived at the foot of the Continental divide near the Yellowstone wilderness. He faces insurmountable odds with nature and her creatures. His skill at hunting includes killing one hundred twenty five grizzlies before he meets his match.He is known as one of the best guides in the west, fearless, and undaunted against all odds. His story is full of humor, history, excitement, and endurance. It is an unusual love story, unmatched and untold, till now.
Ira Dodge was born fifty years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He traveled west as a young man and became one of the last of the mountain men. In his thirties, he found the wilderness a lonely place to live. Although longing for companionship, he knew it was not the life for a woman. Then he met her in an unusual place.....They wrote and sold articles about the wilderness, Indians, guns, gunshot, roads and wildlife. People came as far away as Germany, England and New York to have an opportunity of out door hunting and camping that no other place could offer with an experienced guide. Ira. Dodge took Teddy Roosevelt on a tour of the Yellowstone wilderness before the Spanish-American war.
They lived in the transition time from pioneer America to frontier America. In their life the railroad replaced the long hazardous journey west by foot, horseback or wagon train. Electricity replaced lamps in many areas and towns replaced settlements and forts. Reservation boundary disputes were settled and schools replaced illiteracy in many parts of the newly settled west. This tough mountain man was part of both eras contributing in the development of frontier America. The hazards of frontier life became much more tolerable and most of America's boundaries are soon settled.