Into the Wild by John Krakauer 2007

Into the Wild is a nonfictional book about a young man named Chris McCandless who, after graduating from college, leaves his life in society and takes to the road, hitchhiking across the western U.S. and taking in the beauty of raw natural experience. He is motivated by the works of Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, and Henry David Thoreau, and henceforth has a dislike for society, money, and government. Although he may seem like an ungrateful fool at first, for giving up the promising future he had as a lawyer, Chris is actually quite intelligent and extraordinarily well disciplined. In the end, he is found dead in the Alaska bush after an unfortunate turn of events, over which he had hardly any control. However, his ideas and moral rigor live on in the research and literature of John Krakauer who had written an article for Outside magazine on Chris's mysterious death, and was so affected by the story that he decided to write a book on it.

I read this book for Ms. Laramee's English class. Ms. Laramee had a connection with this book, in that after college, she had worked for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), leading students on outdoor adventures in such places as South America and Alaska. I couldn't believe it when she told us that she had gone more than 40 days on an expedition with only one set of clothes. Some people thought that this was disgusting and ridiculous but I thought it was incredible. I hoped to one day do something so incredible and life changing.

I have always liked the outdoors. I would go camping with my mom up in the mountains starting when I was three. I had gone on trips with my family up to my grandparents' camp in Pittsburgh NH where there was no electricity except for a generator, moose outside the door in the morning, and no body else around for miles. I also enjoyed going for walks in the woods behind my Memere's (grandmother's) house. My Pepere (grandfather) had been a wildlife biologist for the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game for 40 years. He was also a trapper and would take care of animals in need of rehabilitation; when my aunts and uncles and my mom were little they had such pets as a beaver, a skunk, a raccoon, a bear cub, and a deer. Almost my entire family inherited his outdoorsiness, including myself.

It was because of my love for the outdoors that I became interested in the R.O.P.E. class at CHS. I first learned about it in 7th grade and had made it one of my goals to take the class once I got to the high school. However, I realized in 8th grade, while selecting my freshman year courses, that only Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors could take the class; I would have to wait another year. During my freshman year, I talked to some kids who were taking R.O.P.E. I asked them questions about the course and what I needed to do to get in. One of the people that I talked to told me about a program that he did every summer called SCA, the Student Conservation Association. He showed me a bunch of photographs of his trips to New Mexico, Montana, and Alaska where he, along with other high school students from across the country, worked on trails for various national parks. He suggested that I do it and I agreed. However, when I looked into it, I found out that I wasn't old enough to attend that summer, but would be by the summer of my Sophomore year. So not only did I read Into The Wild my Sophomore year, but I also took R.O.P.E and applied for SCA.

The story of Chris McCandless intensified my love for the outdoors and sparked my distrust for social institutions. It caused me to consider what was important in the grand scheme of things as opposed to solely the present and near future. I began to question the importance of social status and academic achievement; I wondered if what I thought was going to make me happy (college, money, etc.) was truly going to bring me happiness in the long run. It seemed to me that Chris McCandless was even smarter than I was in school, and he chose to live a life which some uneducated and indeed some homeless people are forced to live. This led me to believe that just because you are smart and hardworking doesn't mean that you are destined nor do you always desire to live a life of high social status and riches. The fact that Into the Wild was a true story made me consider the lessons and ideas that it conveyed (asceticism, civil disobedience, raw natural experience, anti-societalism [I'm not sure if that is a word]) more critically and with a greater sense of truth and practicality, than if it had been a fiction novel that taught morals and ideas that might not be plausible in the real world. I found a role model in Chris McCandless and I strove to be more like him, (without making any drastic changes to my lifestyle) at least where morals and beliefs are concerned.