There were plenty of bear stories by the pioneers in NYS...years before Lewis & Clarke.
Yes, but the L/C journals tell of being warned repeatedly by the Indians of the danger from the grizz. Clark huffed in the journal the these should not trouble the white man, as they were armed with modern weapons.
Two weeks later, the journal records their discomfit and the necessity of sending three men to do one man’s job: two to watch everyone’s back, and the one man needed for the job.
The journal does not record what the local Indian dialect was for “we told you.”