That reminds me of 2 other stories from the Alaskan wilderness, "Grizzly Man," Timothy Treadwell, who "befriended" and filmed wild grizzlies until he met up with the one that ate him and his girlfriend, and "Alone in the Wilderness," about Richard Proenekke. Proenekke went with meticulous preparation, did trial runs to evaluate what he would need to survive, built a cabin, and lived mostly off the land with regular supply runs from a friend. He had no illusions about the dangers of the Alaskan wilderness, and lived there for decades. The other guys just seem dumb, and completely unrealistic. It's a shame. I wonder if, at the end, they realized how foolish they were to throw their lives away. It sounds like McCandless did, but I guess the end for Treadwell and Amie Huegenard was probably too sudden and violent to allow that kind of retrospective.

I don't understand the idea that American society is shallow and materialistic. That is the advertising culture, sure, but I don't think most people engage with it as fully as we are lead to believe by the self-perpetuating and isolated media culture. I feel very fortunate to have been born in this time and place. Even thought I think it would be neat to try something like these guys did, how can you have such illusions about the difficulty of the enterprise? What a horrible way to go. Mother nature is a cruel hearted bitch.