On natural selection in the Alaska bush - posted at 08:10

Before I get started, I'd just like to exclaim that the fireweed is blooming! Hooray!

When I was in high school I read Into the Wild, a story by Jon Krakauer which has gained quite a bit more attention and recognition since it was made into a movie of the same name. I read the book on the tails of another Krakauer book, Into Thin Air, and frankly remember being pretty underwhelmed by the Christopher McCandless story because the story of an Everest tragedy was so much more compelling and used such powerful imagery. This is not totally surprising because Into the WIld is something of a biography, whereas Into Thin Air accounts the author's personal experiences. How could a huge personal ordeal so traumatic that the (ostensibly normally sober) author had to get high after getting off that mountain (something that obviously really stuck with my sheltered sixteen year old brain) compare with a story that was merely researched, observed from a distance? But I digress.

So when the movie came into theaters last year I didn't rush to see it. Now that I live in Alaska, I looked at the story as another cautionary tale of how, yes, Alaska can kill you. These cautionary tales are good. There are a lot of ways in that something that would be pretty trivial elsewhere - like forgetting your hat when you're only going to make a quick run from your heated garage to get a gallon of milk, or, say, making absolutely sure that you're not walking in between a mama and baby moose on the way to your car through a darkened parking lot - can cost you your life up here. It's good to remember things like this and to not be unprepared. And surely, if you were to sum up the many mistakes that Chrisopher McCandless made in one word, you would come up with "unprepared." There are a lot of people who view him as a tragic figure (except Alaskans, of course, who take a different tack on it, of course), but I can't say I was every really one of them.

Last week I was doing a shift of vampire hours so I decided to rent the movie to help pass the night. And I'd like to say that my perspective has changed a little in the ten years since I read the book. Now that I'm out of high school and am a denizen of this so-called real world, y'know, I can relate to McCandless' point of view and his thoughts of our modern society. I've had many of the same thoughts myself. What I can't agree with is the extreme to which he took those thoughts. I'd like to stress that for the loved ones who may have felt their blood pressure rise when they read that - I promise that I will not just up and leave and go move into a bus in the middle of interior Alaska and die. That said, I understand the need to feel like you're living life the way it is actually supposed to be lived - not working a meaningless job so that you can accumulate more material goods (I swear that I am actually a happy person even though I don't own an iPod). I think I've made it pretty clear in my infrequent postings here that I am dissatisfied with the way of work in modern society and I think everyone would just be happier if we were working with our hands in jobs that actually produced something concrete. I think that Mr. McCandless would give a "hear, hear" to that but would probably take it to an even greater extreme - he might even object if I owned a sheep and made my yarn from the beast and dyed it with plants from my garden, because all of that requires the acquisition of some material goods. I'm not opposed to owning material goods, I'm opposed to our society's gross "need" for stuff.

But here's the thing that got me about him, a slight hypocrisy in his philosophy: while he was living as a supertramp he was perfectly happy to live off or live with those who had the material goods that he rejected. He worked for farmers who owned outrageously expensive farm equipment or lived with hippies in RVs. He was still spun into the core of the fabric of the society that he so vigorously rejected. Even when he was living in the Alaska bush, he was living in a something that was an expensive material possession. He wasn't truly living off the land - he had industrially-produced shelter and (possibly) an industrially-produced means of generating heat. Even the gun he was using was another piece of metal. If this guy was trying to repudiate everything about our society, he should have been using things he had made with his own hands, living on the land, not on a bus. Does anyone else find it odd that he would take an expensive piece of steel wrought in a foundry with him into the wild, but not a $4 compass?

The inability to see such inconsistencies undoubtedly cost him his life. If he had been less rigid and more thoughtful, more critical, he would have seen that it made no sense in his philosophy to take a gun but not a compass or a map with him on his lone Alaska adventure. He would have understood that in being truly free, it made no sense to live in a bus, and he would have been more able and more willing to be nomadic and live where food was.

He was so blinded by his passion that logic totally escaped him and he could only see in black and white. As I said, while I sympathize with Christopher McCandless' ideas I can't reconcile his extremes, because ultimately they got him killed. In the end, he was not so extraordinary or so brave - he's just another example of natural selection in the Alaska bush.

Jared commented:

You've touched on something there, that I hadn't noticed when I read the book. But, now that you mention it, I can see the irony.

The problem here is something I'll refer to as the "Thoreau Conundrum". Here you have Thoreau, who is upset with the US government's participation in the Mexican War, and decides not to pay his taxes. And yet he is still living in the US and enjoying the protection and benifits of being a US citizen. Is he, then, a consciencious objector or merely a freeloader?

I feel the same way about Thoreau as McCandles, though. I am astounded by their attempt to live the life they believe in. I think that, often, we look at the fact that people like this are "not extreme enough" or "purist" enough as a shortcoming...because it's easy to do. We cannot be accused of hypocrisy if we do not purport to stand for anything.

To give another example: A lot of people like to use the fact that Al Gore has an expensive house that, up until recently, had a large carbon footprint. Whatever the case, I think that the reason it was investigated in the first place (his house, that is) was as an attempt to discredit the Green Movement. I say, let's look at the intent and the fact that these people (Al Gore, McCandles, Thoreau) are making an active attempt at something they feel is right and moral.

Marissa commented:

I haven't read it yet, but you just echoed my thoughts when I saw the cover for the re-release of the book. "He wanted to be one with the land, and he's live in a bus? WHAT?"

Jitterbean Girl commented:

Jared: the reason I went after whatever hypocrisy that McCandless had in his way of life is because it got him killed. Like I said before, to an extent I agree with the guy. But the movie (maybe not so much the book, but it's been ten years since I read it and I don't exactly remember the tone) kinda glamorized him and even inaccurately portrayed his cause of death. So as someone who lives in Alaska and definitely respects the immensity, the beauty, and the danger that are all present in the landscape, I feel like I have to point out what I see as his true cause of death. The idea that he would take a camera, rubber boots, and a book on plant life but not a map or compass just blows my mind, and since the latter two could have easily saved his life, yeah, maybe I'm a bit harsh in my criticism. I'm not trying to discredit his philosophy - I think a great many of us would be better off living in the woods instead of cubicles - but let's face it, it's also a cautionary tale about taking on the Alaska wilderness.

Marissa: It's like a big ol' Divide By Zero error, eh? It kinda makes my head hurt.

Jared commented:

Check this puppy out...dang cute.

Joy commented:

I had not read the book but had heard of the story before, so this summer I watched the movie for the first time. At first I was so distraught by the tragedy of it all that I was quite disturbed. Once I got over the initial sadness of the story, though, I came to the same conclusion as you. I agree with his ideals but I also believe that he could have done it all a whole lot differently. I am not an Alaskan, but I do spend a lot of time in the outdoors and have a lot of respect for the dangers it can hold. I wonder if he could have found a secluded community in the Alaskan wilderness and lived with them for the time in order to live off the land without being alone. (Any outdoors person knows that being alone in the wilderness is one of the most dangerous things to do)
I think, though, that the point of the storyline, is that he is a young man in search of himself and believes that being alone is what he needs. If you remember, near the end of the story when he is ready to go home he finally realizes that nothing he has accomplished means anything if he doesn't have someone to share it with. That is the turning point in his growth and at this point he tries to go home but can't. I believe that he was immature in his choices, and kind of acted like a spoiled brat who could not appreciate what he had until it was unreachable.