Hi folks, been busy a while and just come back to this thread. I read the wikipedia entry Trevor and I agree this version of events does look at it in a rather factual encyclopedic way without too great analysis of the whole story. Encyclopedias by their very purpose are factual. Reading the facts like this it is obvious that McCandless was ill-prepared for Alaska. The map and compass is something we all take with us everywhere even when we only venture 3 miles from the nearest road, shop, village, hotel or medical facility. I myself really hate the thought of being lost and I hate the feeling of knowing I am lost - it starts to scare me, and I am sure most people identify with that feeling. But MCCandless, I believe, saw all that as sterilisation of the environment, as a taming of the land and I think he wanted to get as close to wilderness as was posible for a young man in the 20th century. He saw those things as making his survival task easy and in that regard I honestly believe McCandless wanted to survive. He made calculated decisions not to take map and compass with him. He wanted to survive and get to know the land without such aid. And with three months at your disposal, the means to survive and attain food, and knowledge of your route back out of the wilderness there was no reason he couldn't do that safely. Yes it was a big risk, a big challenge and there was massive margin for error, as was finally the case, but there have been far greater successful feats of survival than this.
I do accept without doubt that there was a little naivety concerened with his thinking, but only a little and I don't criticise him for it one bit. It should be looked at in the context of how he had spent the last 2 years of his life. He spent it survivng in that exact same way - without a map, without a compass, without a home or a plan for his next meal, save for the bag of rice when he could get hold of one. Only when he met people he identified with, and made great friends with, did he revert to some form of societal lifestyle, such as the jobs he had at the grain elevator. McCandless had lived like that for two years, all he wanted to do was step it up to the Alaskan wilderness for a few months. His Alsakan Odyssey was the major event in his life to that date and it was the only thing he had actually planned for. He planned and he prepared purposefully and it seems to me he was prepared to take the risks and knew the risks. He didn't take the same precautions you and I would but that doesn't mean to me that he was stupid, naive, wreckless or over-confident. For that reason I don't think the Alaskan people or other people can dismiss his life as tragic or stupid. Only those that are grieving his loss can look at it as tragic. He wasn't stupid and what he did wasn't stupid. He enjoyed his life, he loved his adventures, he searched his very core existence for meaning and purpose, an he had more strength of personality and courage than I certainly have ever had. Its not romance, its solid fact. He enjoyed what he did, he loved his life and he was grateful for it......
There is talk of suicide in that wikipedia entry and possible mental illness. Isn't it funny that a man who attempts to go back to his wild roots, who attempts to jettison society, even for as short a period as McCandless had planned (for it was just a short period), who tries to live a completely different lifestyle to one which we are all conditioned into is dismissed with having mental illness. This entry in wikipedia staggers me. It is staggering to think that a man who wants to enjoy his life by going "into the wild" for a few months could be excused as being mentally "ill". McCandless was mentally gifted not mentally ill. By the negative and stereotypical associations society and people have for the mentally ill label it automatically denigrates what this man was all about and did. I couldn't disagree more.The evidence and speculation that is quoted to corroborate a suicide situation was the fact that there was a hand operated tram just a quarter of a mile downstream of the impassable river that would have enabled him to cross in safety, and that had he had a map he would have known this. It’s not inconceivable that McCandless would not have walked a mile or so in either direction of the river to look for safe crossing points. It’s not inconceivable that McCandless saw the tram and thought better of it. It’s not inconceivable that McCandless saw the river crossing as a sign that he could have just a bit longer in Alaska enjoying himself and that he just decided to go back. The speculation is endless but I do not think that his death was suicide in any way. On return to the bus he continued to shoot game successfully. although his calorifc intake was still way below his need. He continued to try and survive. Death by mistaken ingestion of poisonous seeds is just another speculation but based on McCandless' history and life I do not think he committed suicide.
As for the Alaskan Park Ranger's little essay on the subject I find his comments absolutely staggering, arrogant, disrespectful, patronising and full of the self effacing superiority of a man who believes that because he did everything in the correct and sensible way then his oipinion is fact. He spends half the essay bragging about how great he is and the other half lamenting at how little recognition he received compared to the fuss made of a nomark like McCandless. The super Alaskan Park Ranger's motives and reasons for going to Alaska were completely different to MCandless. McCandless didn't want to become a Park Ranger of an entire country and spend his life controlling other people.
If he is "exposed continually to what he calls the McCandless phenomenon" and is so fed up of these young time wasters getting killed or wasting governement money on expensive rescues then either stop rescuing them or get another job.
