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......
