People Should Not Travel The Klondike Alone

In August 1992, a decomposed body, presumably died of starvation, was found inside an abandoned bus beside the Sushana River in Alaska. Shortly thereafter, the dead person was identified as twenty-four-year-old Chris McCandless, who was from an affluent family in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. A tragic story, with a mix of a young man, his well-off background, and happening in the most precarious but highly noble place, always had an emotional pull on people’s minds and stirred up people’s curiosity and perplexity. The question, often asked by the people with desire to grasp the truths, was why Chris with a privileged life would have gone to Alaska’s wilderness to face the ultimate challenge of his life. Was he in search of something

“He was immense,” “Full of winter death.” In the book Dogsong by Gary Paulsen the main character Russel Susskit encountered many difficult situations which he was able to overcome with his bravery. He is a 13 year old boy who goes on a long trip in north america during the mid 1980’s, to find his true self with a team of sled dogs. Russel is a strong, courageous, and brave boy who is able to overcome any obstacle.

Chris McCandless was smart, a straight A student, got accepted into Emory University, and decided to not apply his knowledge when he went into the wilderness of Alaska in 1992. Into the Wild, a biography written by Jon Krakauer, is about Chris’s story of after he graduated high school and went into the wild. Right after he went to high school, he traveled the country in his yellow datsun, met amazing people, and came back to finish college. After finishing college with a degree, he went hitchhiking across the country again and went into the alaskan wilderness, without ever coming back alive. Chris McCandless went into the wild unprepared with any good materials, he did not have a very good knowledge of what he was actually doing, and he left

The autobiographical novel Winterdance, written by Gary Paulsen, is based on the author’s experiences in both training for and running in the Iditarod dog sled race. Held in Alaska, the race conditions are so extreme it is cold enough for your eyeballs to potentially freeze. An important setting in the novel is the Iditarod dog sled race as throughout the novel, it helps me understand a key character - Gary Paulsen. He allows me to explore the idea of how experiences can change your understanding on life and the significance of loyalty.

Do you believe that dogs are man's best friend? Winterdance by Gary Paulsen is a true story about himself, it starts when he moves with his wife to a small house in the woods of minnesota, driving them broke in the process. He starts to run a trapline with dogs and finds his passion, running dogs. Paulsen unconsciously decides to run the Iditarod and we follow him throughout his journey, training, traveling, and finally actually running the race. Gary Paulsen uses symbolism, motifs, and theme to further the reader's understanding and enjoyment of the book.

In “To Build a Fire,” the story of an unnamed man traveling along the Yukon Trail with a dog is told. Throughout the story, the man’s death is foreshadowed. The husky that he is traveling with has a natural instinct and understands, seemingly more than the man, that traveling the Yukon Trail in the freezing cold temperatures is extremely dangerous. The man soon learns how cold it is when he spits. His saliva turns into ice before hitting the ground, and he knows this means that it is more than fifty degrees below freezing. Despite the obvious danger and forewarning from an older man, the man and dog continue along the trail. The temperature is the main factor resulting in his death. The human body has limits,

Risks are a possibility of loss or injury; all humans at least once in their lifetime have to do something risky. If life has no risks, you’re not really living it, since we humans do not grow as a species (or society) if there is no challenge in life. People in this world must have challenge and struggle to overcome an obstacle in their life to discover the real world. This way a person will grow physically and most importantly, mentally, to never do something adventurous or take the easy way out is on them. Krakauer, Emerson and Thoreau all have their own ideas on risk, but they all have in common is that risk can change a person for the good or bad.

The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.

In the 2013 online article, “The Chris McCandless Obsession Problem”, author Diana Saverin describes the Alaskan wilderness travel phenomenon along with attempting to uncover the ‘McCandless Pilgrims’ “root of motivation. Sparked by the release of both Jon Krakauer’s and Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild”, numerous individuals pack their backpacks and eagerly step into their (sometimes newly-bought) hiking shoes and tramp into the Alaskan Wild to pay homage to their hero Chris McCandless. Filled with personal anecdotes and interviews, Severin’s Outside article takes a new approach Into the Wild commentary by directing attention to the lives McCandless’s story affected indirectly rather than critiquing on McCandless himself. In response to what appears to be a huge amount of troubled McCandless-inspired tramping stories, Saverin provides an unbiased rationale as a attempt to explain why so many are “willing to risk injury, and even death, to..visit the last home of Alaska’s most famous adventure casualty”.

"I think that Chris McCandless was bright and ignorant at the same time. He had no common sense, and he had no business going to Alaska with his Romantic silliness. He made a lot of mistakes based on ignorance. I don’t admire him at all for his courage nor his noble ideas. Really, I think he was just plain crazy." This statement, made by Shaun Callarman, pertains to Chris McCandless’s trek into Alaska that ultimately led to death by starvation. Since the recovery of Chris’s body, there has been much speculation about the prevention of Chris’s death and the possible causes. Despite Callarman’s plea of craziness, there have been both eye-witness accounts showing that Chris was sane and prepared when leaving for the Alaskan wilderness, many natural

There has been many great presidents in office throughout the years. One stood out in particular. This president led the colonial forces to victory over the British and became a hero. In 1787, he was elected president of the convention that wrote the U.S constitution. Being the president of the United States is a huge honor, but also a tremendous job. It can be hard and very stressful. This person carries the lives of many in his hands. Imagine being the first president. George Washington, a well-respected man in the colonies, fought diligently for his beliefs in America’s freedom, and was unanimously chosen as the first president of the United States.

All forms of literature betrays life or nature in a particular matter or form. Realism is one form

In 1992, 24 year old Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions and decided to hitchhike to Alaska and invent a new life for himself. Chris had just finished college and many thought he was going to further his education but instead he took a fatal trip into the wild. There are many questions still unanswered to why he felt he needed to go on this trip and people will never know the real reason why Chris McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska by himself with insufficient equipment. Although many people think that Chris McCandless went into the wild due to literacy influences, the real reasons behind his actions were due to family problems and his risk-taking tendencies.

We see in “To Build a Fire” that The Man is constantly plagued by the icy tundra he finds himself in. Unfortunately for him, at the beginning of his journey, the cold did not bother The Man. He states, “it was cold and uncomfortable, and that was all…it did not lead him to consider his weaknesses as a creature affected by temperature” (London 2). The man knew it was extremely cold, but failed to recognize the intense gravity of his situation: he did not process it as a viable threat. Eventually, this lack of fear caused his unfortunate demise. As the story goes on, his environment begins to