[Madpaddy]

Watched the film last night and enjoyed it. Thought Chris was obviously avoiding all his issues at home. I read somewhere that the Alaskans view of him was he was a bit of a clown and that he basically committed suicide due to his lack of preparations. I wouldn't be that harsh but his failure to bring a map and compass was unforgiveable.

For a guy running away fom society, I thought his dying in a school bus in the supposed wilderness was ironic.

[frankthetank]

Never seen it, but the kid doesn't sound like a modern day Dick Proenneke to me. Even in his case, he still needed some contacts to the outside world.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', 'I') enjoyed it for sure. And Chris could hold his own in wilderness survival. Eat me haters.

[billg]

Interesting to hear different perspectives...I just got around to checking out the movie after hearing about it here. Aside from Chris's total naivete when it came to wilderness survival, the kid did have a fair amount of resourcefulness if he was able to live without a car and money (maybe he had a little) for a couple years. Not many people even have the courage to hitchhike these days.

It does seem to me that Chris probably felt that he was at the end of his road... I have a feeling that the author cited below is correct. Chris probably had some serious mental issues related to the cutting off and rejecting of everything/everybody from his past. The thought of having to go back and repair those relationships probably made things worse. His head was coming unglued. He gave death an invitation and it responded.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Chris McCandless from an Alaska Park Ranger’s Perspective
by Peter Christian

Both Chris McCandless and I arrived in Alaska in 1992. We both came to Alaska from the area around Washington, D.C. We were both about the same age and had a similar idea in mind; to live a free life in the Alaska wild. Fourteen years later Chris McCandless is dead and I am living the dream I set out to win for myself. What made the difference
in these two outcomes?

There was nothing heroic or even mysterious about what Chris McCandless did in April 1992. Like many Alaskans, I read Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild” when it first came out and finished it thinking, “why does this guy rate an entire book?” The fact that Krakauer is a great outdoor writer and philosopher is the bright spot and it makes a great read, but McCandless was not something special.

As a park ranger both at Denali National Park, very near where McCandless died, and now at Gates of the Arctic National Park, even more remote and wild than Denali, I am exposed continually to what I will call the “McCandless Phenomenon.” People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically nonexistent. I know the personality type because I was one of those young men.

In fact, Alaska is populated with people who are either running away from something or seeking themselves in America’s last frontier. It is a place very much like the frontier of the Old West where you can come to and reinvent yourself. In reality, most people who make it as far as Alaska never get past the cities of Fairbanks and Anchorage because access is so difficult and expensive (usually by airplane), travel is so hard, the terrain is challenging, the bears are real, and so on.

A very few competent and skillful people make a successful go at living a free life in the wild, build a home in the mountains, raise their children there and eventually come back with good stories and happy endings. A greater number give it a try, realize it is neither easy nor romantic, just damn hard work, and quickly give up and return to town with their tails between their legs, but alive and the wiser for it.

Some like McCandless, show up in Alaska, unprepared, unskilled and unwilling to take the time to learn the skills they need to be successful. These quickly get in trouble and either die by bears, by drowning, by freezing or they are rescued by park rangers or other rescue personnel–but often, not before risking their lives and/or spending a lot of government money on helicopters and overtime.

When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament using one of several routes that could have been successful. Consider where he died. An abandoned bus. How did it get there? On a trail. If the bus could get into the place where it died, why couldn’t McCandless get out of the place where he died? The fact that he had to live in an old bus in the first place tells you a lot. Why didn’t he have an adequate shelter from the beginning? What would he have done if he hadn’t found the bus? A bag of rice and a sleeping bag do not constitute adequate gear and provisions for a long stay in the wilderness.

No experienced backcountry person would travel during the month of April. It is a time of transition from winter’s frozen rivers and hard packed snow with good traveling conditions into spring’s quagmire of mud and raging waters where even small creeks become impassible. Hungry bears come out of their dens with just one thing in mind - eating.

Furthermore, Chris McCandless poached a moose and then wasted it. He killed a magnificent animal superbly conditioned to survive the rigors of the Alaskan wild then, inexperienced in how to preserve meat without refrigeration (the Eskimos and Indians do it to this day), he watched 1500 pounds of meat rot away in front of him. He’s lucky the stench didn’t bring a grizzly bear to end his suffering earlier. And in the end, the moose died for nothing.

So what made the difference between McCandless and I fourteen years ago? Why am I alive and he is dead? Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide while I apprenticed myself to a career and a life that I wanted more badly than I can possibly describe in so short an essay. In the end I believe that the difference between us was that I wanted to live and Chris McCandless wanted to die (whether he realized it or not). The fact that he died in a compelling way doesn’t change that outcome. He might have made it work if he had respected the wilderness he was purported to have loved. But it is my belief that surviving in the wilderness is not what he had in mind.

I did not start this essay to trash poor Chris McCandless. Not intentionally. It is sad that the boy had to die. The tragedy is that McCandless more than likely was suffering from mental illness and didn’t have to end his life the way he did. The fact that he chose Alaska’s wildlands to do it in speaks more to the fact that it makes a good story than to the fact that McCandless was heroic or somehow extraordinary. In the end, he was sadly ordinary in his disrespect for the land, the animals, the history, and the self-sufficiency ethos of Alaska, the Last Frontier.

[PenultimateManStanding]

That's an interesting perspective from Mr. Christian. Though I do respect it, I don't think that McCandless set out for the Alaskan wilderness with the intent to die. He shot that moose with the intent to eat it. Sure, he was reckless and naive and it cost him his life. He could just as easily lost his life riding the rapids of the Colorado river without any training. McCandless was a Romantic, a dreamer who rejected the Modern World. That's why people visit that bus in remembrance.

[smallpoxgirl]

I haven't seen the movie, but I've read a summary of the book. I definitely want to see the movie, but seriously. There's this city slicker mentality that people wants to go live in the woods, kind of like taking a trip to the aquarium or Disney world. They expect the wilderness to be a cute little poodle and are quite surprised to find that it can be a ferocious creature with no compunctions about killing you.

There are lots of people that ran off to Alaska and have lived more or less alone in cabins for 40 years. They survived because they were careful, thoughtful, prepared, and had a healthy respect for the dangers involved. Seems like this guy is just one step removed from the CNET moron last winter. "Ohh here, let me drive my Saab 15 miles up a forest service road in a blizzard. Ohh crap, I'm dead." "Let me walk off into the wilds of Alaska without the skills or knowledge or preparation to survive. Ohh crap, I'm dead." I understand the motivation, but not the lack of preparation or respect. The wilderness is not an amuzement park ride.

[holmes]

Hi PMS,
Yes you can survive in Alaska. It helps alot if you have a lake with a massive salmon run. Yes Chris was not that clueless in the wilderness as some might think. He just screwed up with the moose. He needed to get that into some snow or the frigid water as he was smoking drying it. But he definately was not up on how to take care of meat. Salmon runs in Alaska are key to surviving up there.

[mikeflecheer]

This is the last generationk there won't be a fourth generation that doesn't work, count on it.

[Revi]

I liked the movie. He just got so far out there that he could not get back. I was a lot like McCandless too. I just managed to live through the situations I put myself into. I could have just as easily died a number of times.

Nature is something to be respected. She will take your life, if you screw up.

Most people live in some unreal bubble now. They live in a virtual world where nature doesn't really matter. We need to get back to a place where nature has some kind of an effect on our lives.

We are a couple of weeks into the maple sugaring season now. I live by the weather and the sap runs. I find that it's a struggle, but it is totally consuming. Living on nature's time.

[PeakingAroundtheCorner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Homesteader', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'B')est movie of 2007 IMO.

[static66]

I read the book when it came out and liked it, I liked it because Chris was a doer.... he was a dreamer.... he was mentally scarred and drew himself a line with a beginning and an end. It started with his graduation from Emory, his last "pre-requisite" and ended with his extraordinarily painful exit from this life, in a schoolbus in Alaska. I thought Sean Penn's telling of Krakauers book was spot-on and really well-done. Chris was on the journey to end his life, he had no intention of returning, just doing it his own way in his own time. Fuck all of you super-heroic haters who can't understand a flawed human being, you all must be sooooo proud of yourselves!!! Chris Mccandless was not trying to be Dick Proennike, there are few on the planet who could measure up to
such a man.... he was just an emotionally scarred kid who took the bull by the horns and checked out, not like 99.9% of the pussy-college kids today who dutifully take the pills their parents doctors tell them to take for their "depression" $24,000 to OXFAM... what have you donated Mr. Super-Alaska hero?

[static66]

P.S. Homesteader, your a douchebag.

[Hawkcreek]

--

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('static66', 'P').S. Homesteader, your a douchebag.

[FreakOil]

Come on fellas, let's not start calling eachother "douchebag" and "mama's boy" just because one of you liked the movie and the other one didn't.

My only beef with Homesteader, who I otherwise like, is that he called McCandless a "stupid bastard." The stupid part makes sense; he went to live in the forest with no survival skills. But bastard? I only consider a person a bastard if they harm someone else. McCandless made a terrible error in judgement, but the only person who suffered was himself. He's not a bastard. In fact, he comes off as a very generous person in the book.

A lot of us see a little bit of McCandless in ourselves because we are sick of suburbia and the consumer lifestyle, probably the same things that irked McCandless. I hated suburbia so much I fled the country and never came back.

Also, I can't see how this book would inspire people to do the same as McCandless. He died at the end. This is a cautionary tale.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', 'C')ome on fellas, let's not start calling eachother "douchebag" and "mama's boy" just because one of you liked the movie and the other one didn't.

My only beef with Homesteader, who I otherwise like, is that he called McCandless a "stupid bastard." The stupid part makes sense; he went to live in the forest with no survival skills. But bastard? I only consider a person a bastard if they harm someone else. McCandless made a terrible error in judgement, but the only person who suffered was himself. He's not a bastard. In fact, he comes off as a very generous person in the book.

A lot of us see a little bit of McCandless in ourselves because we are sick of suburbia and the consumer lifestyle, probably the same things that irked McCandless. I hated suburbia so much I fled the country and never came back.

Also, I can't see how this book would inspire people to do the same as McCandless. He died at the end. This is a cautionary tale.

[static66]

Sorry to have used the d-word, but I really think you have a distorted macho view of things here, I am sure you also have some deep rooted fears/critisisms for homosexuals and people not of your particular skin color.... that being said, understand that Chris majored in African studies at Emory where he did most of his work on the appalling hunger and famine that prevailed and still does
(Read- Darfur) He wasn't a fucking lumberjack who had a canoe tour business in the upper peninsula of Alaska.... didn't want to be either.... just a flawed human being with an extraordinary education on things you don't think about too much.... I am sorry he picked Alaska to finish his life, (by hunger).... And no, I do not think if he graduated from Emory and went out and succeeded heroically in the wild it would have made a good book/movie... the overwhelming point is that he was flawed, saw the flaws of society and died hungry, that's it, end of story.

[static66]

P.S., Read Deep Survival, Deep Economy, Deep Ecology, The Deep,
Left a $100,000+yr job traveling throughout the Caribbean and South America to complete my 6 acre compound in Vermont. Completely self sufficient, off-the-grid, chickens, pigs and permaculture gardens, pristine private water supply and the latest addition is a former 25,000 gallon in-ground swimming pool that is being transformed into a four-season greenhouse with geothermal energy and a sloping south-facing super-window roof. Two attack dogs and weapons, commercial kitchen capable of processing entire harvest in the fall, root cellar and custom freezers from Denmark that run off the battery bank. Yeah, I think mama would be proud......

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('static66', 'S')orry to have used the d-word, but I really think you have a distorted macho view of things here, I am sure you also have some deep rooted fears/critisisms for homosexuals and people not of your particular skin color.... that being said, understand that Chris majored in African studies at Emory where he did most of his work on the appalling hunger and famine that prevailed and still does
(Read- Darfur) He wasn't a fucking lumberjack who had a canoe tour business in the upper peninsula of Alaska.... didn't want to be either.... just a flawed human being with an extraordinary education on things you don't think about too much.... I am sorry he picked Alaska to finish his life, (by hunger).... And no, I do not think if he graduated from Emory and went out and succeeded heroically in the wild it would have made a good book/movie... the overwhelming point is that he was flawed, saw the flaws of society and died hungry, that's it, end of story.

[Ache]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')alifornia as a microcosm of the whole United States, or the whole world, if you will, and to try to wake people up and say 'We've been okay so far, for 200 years, but we're gonna have to change if we're gonna continue to be around.'