Having first watched the film a couple of months ago and now having read the brilliant book by Jon Krakauer I am comletely blown away by this brilliant story. There are so many incredible talking points about the complexity of McCandless' character I don't know where to start - so I thought a debate on OM would be a good place to try.
The film does reflect the story brilliantly and from start to finish the film is a beautiful flowing story of one incredibly unique individual man on a great journey that tragically and accidentally leads to his death. What the book adds is great detail, investigative analysis and critical appraisal of what McCandless was trying to achieve, and it adds persepctive in describing other similar characters who perished in similar circumstances to McCandless.
The virulent criticism given to McCandless by people who wrote in to Outside magazine, and by other "pundits" from Alaska surprised me and probably stemmed from their own lack of imagination about what the adventurous spirit means to man. McCandless went into the wild to test every pre-conceived notion of humanity and the societies that humanity has developed, not to prove a point, but to just learn something about his own raison d'etre. Despite his mistakes, despite his lack of apparent preparedness, he knew what he was doing and he knew the risk involved. He wanted to learn for himself and accept the risks. That takes courage.
I for one could not do, and have not done, with my life what McCandless did with his life because I have been conditioned by society to rely on security.
McCandless said "nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future". What a thing to know at such a young age. I admire him and respect him and his story inspires me to love the land and nature all the more. What a legacy to leave. I wish I knew him!
Tanya and I watched the movie some time ago and found it to be a riveting film. I would like to think that i have the skills and wherewithall to achieve something like that and in my heart i have the desire as does Tanya to sack the rat race and get back to nature but....
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/forum/forummessages.asp?dt=&UTN=21940&last=1&V=8&SP=We enjoyed a very good natter on here about all of this stuff not so long ago too. Great film and book of course, of a very sad story for our times, and a warning to all to be heeded as well; not to venture so far into the wilderness solo without greatly dedicated prior trip preparation, and the most detailed personal knowledge gathering.
That's one of the talking points Trevor. Is "greatly dedicated prior trip preparation" and "the most detailed personal knowledge gathering" really an attempt by man to do what he is conditioned by society to do? To try and control to the nth degree everything that is wild about life, living and the land? To try and sterilise experience. And what effect does the sterilisation and control of your surroundings have on you as a person? We never truly experience wilderness ever. Someone did at some point in our existence. We were cave men hunter gatherers once who survived through the stone age.
I go wild camping. But how wild is it? I buy food from the supermarket and carry it with me. So did McCandless but he stuck his neck much further than you or I have ever done. He did prepare. He did plan. He did seek knowledge and experience of survival before he went into the wild. He took books and learned what he could and couldn't eat wild. He sought the wisdom of more experienced men. He made one mistake with the wild potatoe plant seeds that not even science had discovered was potentially lethal. It cost him his life, but his life and his story is not a sad one for me. Its inspirational. He sought to exist and thrive oustide the boundaries we humans have cast around ourselves by sterilising our lives and our environment. He was just a kid and he did all that.
> We were cave men hunter gatherers once who survived through the stone age.
Yes, but even they relied on sharing experience and techniques; not far from Trevor's 'preparation and knowledge gathering'. They were modern humans (i.e. homo sapiens sapines), and so were as bright as we are, and as knowledgeable. Only their knowledge was far more concerned with their everyday lives and existence. We know a lot of stuff, but vast amounts of it are utterly useless if it came to a hunter-gatherer survival situation. And they made incremental advances in their knowledge and technology
Bruce Parry in his series 'Tribe' gave a good analogy; he eventually realised that many of the 'tribes' he visited treated him like a child, because, as far as his knowledge and skills were concerned, that was the level of his development.
> He made one mistake with the wild potatoe plant seeds that not even science had discovered was potentially lethal.
Interesting. I knew as a kid that domestic potato seeds were poisonous (my dad grew them)... I seem to recall it's in the same family as the nightshades...
Also, it's better to know the techniques for evaluating potential foodstuff for toxins than to try to learn about every plant before you set off. Eventually, you'll come to recognise the things you can eat (usually by an unconcious process that allows the brain to see something and know what it is; not by the more conscious, analytical counting of petals, looking at leaf shape, stalk, etc.)
So, in terms of preparation, basic techniques are the things to learn. Identifying what those essential techniques are is another question...
I haven't seen the film but the book is excellent (Krakaeur is a good writer). I felt that McCandless came across as a little naive but sympathetic. The risk when you go into such remote places is always greater than in places like the Lake District (though parts of the Highlands can be amazingly remote in winter - a woman died in a bothy a few years back because no one found her and a man had to crawl down Slioch with an injured leg after waiting days for rescue on the summit, he was lucky to survive). I've spent 4.5 months hiking solo the length of the Canadian Rockies and 3 months hiking south to north through the Yukon Territory. At times I was over 100 miles from a road and at one point I went 10 days without seeing another person. I was very aware that an immobilising injury could mean death. I did check out info on wild foods and carried a fishing line in the Rockies. For various reasons I got somewhat lost for a week in the Rockies (I knew which direction to walk - north!- but couldn't have pinpointed my position on the map to within 25 miles at best) and just about ran out of food for several days and was on minimal rations before that. I tried fishing and caught nothing. I nibbled some green stuff but the calorie content was minimal. It's been some years since I thought about this stuff but I remember that unless fruit is available then you need fish or meat for calories. I also remember that with unknown plants you taste a tiny bit and see what happens (this info may no longer be the best). McCandless made a few mistakes but I suspect we all do that at times - I certainly do (and running out of food and getting lost were two of them). Most of the time we survive and it becomes a good story. Occasionally someone is unlucky. McCandless was one of the latter.
I've read the book a while back and was struck by his bravery at attempting what he attempted and have the same opinion about what Chris just descibed with his Rockies journey - I regularly go out on my own in the Scottish mountains and feel comfy with it but I couldnt enter deep into a vast wilderness like Alaska or The Rockies on my own, I think that the potential dangers of such a situation would be too daunting.
It's all relative, Cammy. I know people who won't go out in the Scottish hills on their own and think I'm mad to do so. I don't think the potential dangers of going deep into a big wilderness are actually much higher than going solo in the Scottish hills if you know what you are doing, take care and are prepared to learn because however much you think you know what you're doing you can't know everything and new situations and challenges always arise. Being able to stay calm and think is probably the most important skill of all.
Well thats a good point Chris - being able to stay calm and think your course of action through carefully will probably get you out of most things safely - especially being lost in thick clag!
I think CT put it brilliantly and has the experience to make comparisons with being in places like Alaska. I think most people who read the book can relate massively to the personality of Chris McCandless, I think a lot of outdoor people have that 'loner' personality in them that wants to get away from society which can often let us down as we know a better world. Fortunately for some of us we find things in life to keep us sane and in one place most of our lives like family and friends, but it seemed this wasn't enough to fullfil Chris McCandless. I certainly love the book and don't have anything negative to say about the situations he found himself in. CT's end above about fate reminded me of a line towards the end of the Mountain Days and Bothy Nights book also about fate which I think of all the time and often remember the words of whenever I heard bad news about the fate of fellow mountain go'ers. Can't quite remember it right now and have leant the book to someone but anyone who has the book may know the sentence I am talking of.
Got lost in thick clag myself once on Bleaklow and had to get a NT ranger to kind of rescue me as I ended up coming off on the wrong side, was scary as hell and I'll never forget how messed up mentally I became, running for no reason etc. But knew if I followed a stream eventually I'd end up goign downhill and that where I was is surrounded by A roads every direction by atleast several miles. Was horrible but these things can happen to anyone at anytime.
Andrew, I do understand that you are perhaps looking at this story firstly in the more inspired romanticised terms maybe. Looking within it for something much more deeper, and almost spiritual, on a more personal meaningful level than the rest of us here are addressing now in general terms. I'm not knocking that mate, not at all. As there is nothing wrong with that way of looking at and interpreting this great story, essentially.That interesting angle is after all the whole main basis of the drive of the recent Hollywood film. However I myself do feel that this is but looking at one single important aspect of the story, in isolation to all the others. Though I agree it is a rather big aspect indeed, of this true life tale of extraordinary modern day pioneer-spirit type bravery, and true real adventure. You are very right that the guy sure did step far out of his, and our own, accepted known comfort zone there. He went the extra mile and was most unlucky that he did not survive, to tell the tale of his bravely undertaken personal adventure odyssey himself.
Well I appreciate your point Trevor, but I am not looking at it in more romanticised terms. I am inspired by the story full stop. Your left brain is dominating your thinking in this regard and you are dminishing my opinion because it comes from the right brain. There are thousands of talking points to come out of the story and I am not focussing on one single important aspect. I am trying to get an open conversation going about the story in its entirety.
For example, McCandless had no idea what each new day would bring, absolutely none. Can you imagine not knowing what you'll be doing tomorrow? Can you imagine not knowing how you're going to get your next meal? Can you imagine not knowing where you are going to sleep? Not only tomorrow but for the rest of your life? My God, we have all been making plans with our lives for the days we retire thirty or forty years from now. That was his plan, to take out security from his life completely and he was under no romantic illusion that that was an easy or enjoyable thing to do. Only when he had done it for so long did his mind and coping strategies begin to change and adapt to the circumstamces he forced on himself. Only then, when he had adapted to his new lifestyle did our lifestyle, the big city materialistic urban lifestyle, seem like the wilderness on earth. What we view as wilderness is not really wilderness, its natural and normal. What we have created for ourselves in terms of the uber-organisation of society is not natural. Cities were wilderness to McCandless and that's where he met most danger, where he was most at risk. He knew that cities were sterile environments that thwart the spirit and creative thinking, but he also had the presence of mind (his left brain) to organise his survival in Alaska for 112 days or whatever it was. A mistake killed him - he lived by the sword and he died by the sword.
McCandless could do both. He could think with his right brain and with his left brain and he created a life of his own, not one that was chosen for him. Whatever the mistakes, however anyone feels this kind of attitude to life is romantic folly, this bloke had the courage of his convictions. Not many of us are that courageous.
I am inspired by the story full stop. Your left brain is dominating your thinking in this regard and you are dminishing my opinion because it comes from the right brain. There are thousands of talking points to come out of the story and I am not focussing on one single important aspect. I am trying to get an open conversation going about the story in its entirety. - Wrote Andrew.
I am most certainly definitely NOT diminishing your opinion there, not in any ways. I did say in fact 'I'm not knocking that mate, not at all. As there is nothing wrong with that way of looking at and interpreting this great story, essentially.' Did I not!
Yes, this young man set out on an adventure into the wilderness lands, and save for the fact that he most sadly perished there, he did what hundreds of kids do in the States every year, save for the fact that they returned alive to tell their tales. It is the outdoors disasters that tend to get the books and films and tv renactments made of them by comparison. That 'human interest' angle that sells, the same as like the soap operas tales of extremes of life story troubles stories do. It is easy to go to a place with little prior preparation and get into a situation of 'not knowing where the next meal will come from nor where one will lay ones head that night.' Folks all clear across the whole wide world are doing it every single night in fact. There is nothing big or clever in placing oneself in such a position very largely unprepared and unprovisioned on purpose, rather than by accident of experienced life circumstances. Most folks in that same situation are there due to poverty worldwide though, rather than by any real lack of advisable prior preparations.
If you watch the film of mountainmen on Jeremiah Johnson, then you can see that what Mr McCandless did was really nothing essentially new. Many hundreds of mountainmen were living that style of life in the old frontier days of US history. People will always look into a story for some hidden deeper meaning or other; but that does not necessarily mean that what you personally feel you find in such examination, will be ultimately anything at all really felt and believed perspective-wise by the young man himself there, who perished on his wilderness adventure. Much of what you've written on your feelings of the man's thoughts on society now being a dangerous wilderness etc are merely speculative ideas, and likely not the feelings of the real individual that was McCandless himself. For he is no longer here to speak for himself his true opinions. Sadly we shall never now really know what he felt about things in his life. Nor ultimately what feelings really drove him to want to seek such a trip of deepest solitude into the wilderness there, from which he would ultimately never return.
As I did say, it is hard to look at this great story outside of the 'inspired romanticised terms' of which it is presented in both the excellent book, and the more recent fascinating and enthralling film Into the Wild.
I'm thinking I agree with the ranger. There's something to admire in the balls the guy showed in just going out there - and that he nearly managed to survive. But in the end dying in a bus by the side of the road because he didn't have a map is a stupid way to go.
There is one school of thought, if you like to put it as such, that says that McCandless was after that big last blast before a suicide, of the live fast die young variety. And that he craved the fame and hero-worship he felt he could achieve in death, that he had long wished for, but too which had eluded him all his life.I do not know if I agree with that as such myself. I think it was in many ways a brave endeavour he took on, but one too which would inevitably end in tragedy the way he conducted it. Folks who do such trips and come back alive to tell the tale - the armchair adventure travel book shelves are crammed with tales of people that do this type of a thing; and they're but just the small percentage of the bunch that end up writing about such adventure trips around the globe, upon their eventual return - all spend long times in detailed trip preparations, and tend to try to plan for all conceivable eventualities, after all. McCandless sadly does not seem to have done this, for choices and reasons known but only to himself. Do I think I could do what he did? Well, I sure hope not! I wanna get out there deep into the wilderness lands for sure, but only to live there awhile, see it all and come back safe alive to tell the tale too.
We enjoyed a very good natter on here about all of this stuff not so long ago too. Great film and book of course, of a very sad story for our times, and a warning to all to be heeded as well; not to venture so far into the wilderness solo without greatly dedicated prior trip preparation, and the most detailed personal knowledge gathering.
