Timothy Treadwell, infamously known as Grizzly Man, referred to himself as the kind warrior.

A nod to his tireless work in the wild as a documentarian, an aspiring arbiter of all things animal.

This unique character strove to become one with the bears of Alaska,

a dream that would be fulfilled in nightmare fashion.

Welcome to Maroon, stories of the catastrophically lost.

I'm Jack Luna.

This is Aaron Hable.

Timothy Treadwell was born in Long Island, New York on April 29, 1957, but later moved to Long Beach, California.

He originally wanted to be an actor, and he even auditioned for the role that would eventually go to Woody Harrelson on the TV show Cheers, which it's weird because

that role was named Woody.

Why not give it to Woody Harrelson, right?

Right.

He became famous because of that and went on to become a hell of an actor, I believe.

Treadwell loved animals.

And after seeing the Alaskan bears for the first time, it changed his life.

So his story was he had been an alcoholic and he had abused drugs such as heroin

of cocaine as well as alcohol, you know, obviously.

But he had a friend that said, you need to go to Alaska and see the bears.

And so after his friend urged him to do this and after he had a near fatal overdose,

well, he took him up on that.

And he said, I'll go.

And he credits visiting Alaska as the very thing that saved him from being an addict.

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