I enjoyed my hour and six minutes in the wild. It was a little cold, but nevertheless beautifly. I was at peace and I felt closer to God. I wonder if that is how Chris McCandless felt when he was in the wild. He couldn’t just sit around like I did. He had to survive. Food was an issue for him as well as running water. While I was already fed and could easily go inside my home to get a drink. Even though, I wasn’t in the actual wild, like Chris, my backyard was just enough. My time in the wild was peaceful and quiet. The only sound was running water and birds.
I felt as if all my stresses and worries faded away into thin air. “… However, it is peaceful out here. The woods are nearby and I can hear running water. I feel at peace. Connected with nature. ” (My Time in the Wild by Bayley Webb) It was quiet and so so calm. I almost could forget that I had neighbors or my house behind me. Even my dogs were quiet. The weather was kinda chilly too. It was raining earlier in the afternoon and then it stopped. The sun came out, but I couldn’t feel its warmth at times. “It is cold, even though tomorrow is May. At least the rain has stopped and the sun is shining most of the time.
The sun feels warm when the chilly wind isn’t blowing… ” (My Time in the Wild by Bayley Webb)| could ignore the wind and the rain if it was warmer. When the sun came out it was easier to ignore the wind as long as it kept gleaming on. Did Chris feel the cold, or was he so connected to the Alaskan brush that he didn’t feel anything? Was the weather fair for him? “Starvation is not a pleasant way to expire. In advanced stages of famine, as the body begins to consume itself, the victim suffers muscle pain, heart disturbances, loss of hair, dizziness, hortness of breath, extreme sensitivity to cold, physical and mental exhaustion.
The skin becomes discolored. In the absence of key nutrients, a severe chemical imbalance develops in the brain, inducing convulsions and hallucinations. Some people who have been brought back from the far edge of starvation, though, report that near the end, the hunger vanishes, the terrible pain dissolves, and the suffering is replaced by a sublime euphoria, a sense of calm accompanied by transcendent mental clarity. It would be nice to think McCandless experienced a similar rupture. (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer page 198) He must’ve felt the cold. He wasn’t wearing the right clothing for Alaska. It probably was hard to ignore the cold towards the end. He was so scrawny and hungry. I know that I felt the cold. I also envied all the animals for having fur.
At least it wasn’t Alaska and it rained recently. “… The sun feels warm when the chilly wind isn’t blowing. I envy the animals who have plenty of fur to block out the chilliness…. I am getting cold and am beginning to wish I had sweatpants on and a jacket instead of the tank top and shorts…. (My Time in the Wild by Bayley Webb) I definitely have a mild sunburn from being out in the sun to warm. I’m finally getting warm from being outside. I wasn’t even out for as long as Chris was, but I was already itching to go inside. Chris was alone in the Wild. That was the way he liked and wanted it. I couldn’t stand to be by myself for to terribly long. I probably would drive myself crazy. I was alone in the sense no other human being was with me. My two dogs, Pepper and Nikita, were with me. “…. My dogs got me to ,lay down with them. Thope, I really do, that I don’t get any bugs from them.
I’m dirty now form laying in the grass, but at least no spiders got on me. I hate those things…. No frogs or birds. My dog, Nikita, keeps sniffing around. Maybe she’s found something. Better not be a snake. …. My paper blew away. So Pepper and I chased it down. … ” (My Time in the Wild by Bayley Webb) We had fun together. Some quality time that we don’t share often. Nikita got me to lay in the grass and mud with her and we rolled around playing. Then Pepper and I sunbathed. I had my friends. Chris had friends that he made on his journey, but they weren’t with him in his final weeks.
One of his last acts was to take a picture of himself, standing near the bus under the high Alaska sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brae, beatific farewell. His face is horribly emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitied himself in those last difficult nours-because he so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down-it’s not apparent from the photograph. ” (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer page 199) I would hate to die without at least saying goodbye to the people I care about. But that is what Chris did.
His face after death was so peaceful. “He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God. ” (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer page 199) I hope that when I die, people will say that I was so calm looking that I was like a monk who went to God. How peaceful was it really? In my backyard it was fairly peaceful. My neighbors weren’t out and about. My brother, mother, and father were inside doing various things. My sister wasn’t home. “…… Being alone makes it to where I can see what other people can.
No one is out here distracting me, no social media, no cars, just nature and myself. I hear gunshots echoing around me. As if someone is hunting….. ” (My Time in the Wild by Bayley Webb) The only noise there really was, was nature and the gun shots from the gun club across the woods in my front yard. “… I’m so calm I might just take a nap here. Oh! How I love the sound of running water. It is almost as if time has stopped for me in the field. I hear birds chirping merrily and I hope I can take a picture or two of one. There is a frog somewhere. I wonder if I can find it…. No frogs or birds…..
I wonder why no animals are out. Oh well. Maybe they want to shelter from the wind. ” (My Time in the Wild by Bayley Webb) I wanted to see the birds that were chirping and the frogs that were croaking. I wanted to see the animals that other people can. I wouldn’t touch them but get really close to see them. How beautiful they, the birds, must have been! How calm was it for Chris? He was secluded from everyone and it ultimately killed him. “… The plant that poisoned him wasn’t toxic per se; McCandless had the misfortune to eat moldy seeds. An innocent mistake, it was nevertheless sufficient to end his life…..
Laid low by the moldy seeds, McCandless discovered that he was suddenly far too weak to hike out and save himself. He was now too weak to even hunt sufficiently and thus grew weaker still, sliding closer and closer toward starvation. His life was spiraling toward the brink with awful speed…. If McCandless had possessed a U. S. Geological Survey topographic map, it would have alerted him to the existence of a Park Service cabin on the upper Sushana River, six miles due south of the bus, a distance he might have been able to cover even in his severely weakened state.
The cabin, just inside the boundary of Denali national park had been stocked with a small amount of emergency food, bedding, and first-aid supplies for the use of Backcountry rangers on their winter patrols……… McCandless’s apparent salvation, in other words, seemed to be only a three-hour walk upriver. This sad irony was widely noted in the aftermath of his death. But even if he had known about these cabins, they wouldn’t have delivered Mccandless from harm…. ” (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer page 194-196) It wasn’t nature that killed him.
It was him eating moldy seeds that released a toxin deadly to man and animal alike. He was just so close to being able to find help, if only he didn’t reject having a map. Yes there were days when he was frustrated, but he finally began to realize that this “Great Alaskan Adventure, was very dangerous. Chris McCandless enjoyed himself. He never got himself down. “Still Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed extraordinarily minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the winter snowpack.
Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only . 22 caliber, a bore to small too rely on if he expected to kill large animals like moose and caribou, which he would have to eat if he hoped to remain very long in the country. He ha no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered state road map he’d scrounged at a gasstation…. I’m absolutely positive,’ he assured Gallien, ‘I Won’t run into anything I can’t deal with on my own. There was just talking the guy out of it,’ Gallien remembers. ‘He was determined. Real gung ho. The word that comes to mind is excited. He couldn’t wait to head out here and get started. ‘…. Alex insisted on giving Gallien his watch, his comb, and what he said was all his money: eighty-five cents in loose change. ‘I don’t want your money,’ Gallien protested, ‘andl already have a watch. ‘ ‘If you don’t take it, I’m going to throw it away. ‘ Alex cheerfully retorted. ‘I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters…..
Alex pulled a camera from his backpack and asked Gallien to snap a picture of him shouldering his rifle at the trailhead. Then, smiling broadly, he disappeared down the snow-covered track. The date was Tuesday, april 28, 1992. ” (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer pages 5-7) I was in no danger. I had my mother’s phone with me to take pictures and my house was a few yards away from where I was sitting. My closest neighbors were over my fence and their fence. I could also scream for help and my parents would come out of the house to help me. I also had my dogs, who would never let anything or anyone harm me.
Even if they are big chickens, they wouldn’t let their “mama” get hurt. Chris was in danger. His whole time away from his parents was dangerous. He didn’t have a phone and never stayed in one place for long. “…. He was elected to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration of independence: ‘TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS, NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN EXTREMIST. AN AESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT RETURN, ‘CAUSE ‘THE WEST IS THE BEST. AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE FINAL CLIMATIC BATTLE TO KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY CONCLUDE THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION.
TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF FREIGHT TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED CIVILIZATION HE FLEES, AND WALKS ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME LOST IN THE WILD……. ” (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer page 163) In Alaska, he didn’t take a map, which would have been his salvation. He also didn’t carry a phone, that he could’ve used to call Gallien for help. Another thing that he didn’t do was get the heck out of there while he was able to.
While Chris and I enjoyed our time in nature, we did it on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. I won’t that I support Chris and his decisions, but I will say that I respect his love for nature untainted by man. I also respect his fight for survival even though it was scatterbrained on his part. He was a young man with interesting ideas and a little too obsessed with writers who didn’t exactly live out what they wrote. Chris lived out his dream and I believe that I can do the same. The wild doesn’t call me like it did to Chris, but it does calm me down and allow me to take a breath in this stressful world, I call life.
