When I first read Into the Wild, I wondered why Krakauer was starting with an event so close to McCandless's death. But after finishing the book, I could see how Gallien's brief encounter of McCandless mirrors the overall reader's experience (at least mine anyway).
When Gallien first meets McCandless, Gallien's opinion of him is rather low. He thinks that McCandless is another "one of those crackpots from the lower forty-eight who come north to live out ill-considered Jack London fantasies." In other words, Gallien thinks that McCandless is a naive and foolish visitor to Alaska. The gear that McCandless has with him supports Gallien's theory as well.
Alex’s backpack looked as though it weighed only twenty-five or thirty pounds, which struck Gallien — an accomplished hunter and woodsman — as an improbably light load for a stay of several months in the back-country, especially so early in the spring. “He wasn’t carrying anywhere near as much food and gear as you’d expect a guy to be carrying for that kind of trip,” Gallien recalls.
Then the following a bit later.
Still, Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the winter snow pack. Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small to 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 had 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 gas station.
But after only a few hours of talking to McCandless, Gallien's opinion of McCandless begins to take a turn. Gallien realizes that McCandless is quite experienced at living off of the land. He finds McCandless to be quite well educated, well spoken, forthright, and congenial.
The more they talked, the less Alex struck Gallien as a nutcase. He was congenial and seemed well educated. He peppered Gallien with thoughtful questions about the kind of small game that live in the country, the kinds of berries he could eat— ”that kind of thing.”
McCandless impressed Gallien enough that Gallien offered to drive McCandless back to Anchorage in order to buy him better gear.
Gallien offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage, buy him some decent gear, and then drive him back to wherever he wanted to go.
No matter how Gallien tried to dissuade him, McCandless had a solid answer in place for Gallien. By the time that Gallien got McCandless to the start of his intended trail, Gallien willingly gave up some of his own gear to McCandless. Gallien even told McCandless how to contact him. That way McCandless could return the gear. By the time that McCandless was leaving Gallien's vehicle, Gallien figured that McCandless would be good enough to survive.
“I figured he’d be OK,” he explains. “I thought he’d probably get hungry pretty quick and just walk out to the highway. That’s what any normal person would do.”
My overall experience with McCandless was similar to Gallien's brief encounter. When Krakauer first started presenting McCandless to me, I thought he was crazy and stupid. But by the end of the book, I realized that McCandless wasn't crazy or stupid (not even close to stupid). He was passionate about living life the way that he wanted to live it. I will never be able to do what McCandless did, but that doesn't make his way wrong. It makes him unique.
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