Glacial Erratics

I’ve decided to start reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I do this with some trepidation as large parts of my brain, soul, heart, spirit, mind, whatever you might like to call it, would like nothing more than to walk into the Alaskan wilderness and die. If I read this book, something might bend, then break, and off I'll trot to Alaska.

I spent a week or so in Alaska in the summer of 1995. I went on driving tour with my girlfriend at the time and her family. I was the lucky recipient of the boyfriend ticket. I remain immensely grateful to the Grahams for their generous hospitality.

When the plane landed at the Anchorage airport, when the wheels touched the ground, as I looked out the window, up came the thought, "Okay, I can die now." (That's either a remarkable spiritual moment or a perfect example of the kind of strident naivety that I fear may populate the journals and letters of Christopher McCandless excerpted in the book. Was the guy just dumb or had he transcended, something, somehow? We'll see what the book says.)

Later we took a bus from the eastern edge of Denali National Park to the Kantishna Roadhouse that lay in the interior, much closer to the mountain. The bus ride is an all day affair, along a very narrow dirt road, covering 80 or so miles of scenery that is at once the most beautiful and desolate I've ever experienced.

While on the bus, I had an experience that later inspired me to write the following. We had seen moose, a surprising number of bears and some wolves. One group of wolves was off in the distance chasing and digging after a small animal in a dry riverbed. One particular wolf caught my eye and I borrowed some binoculars to get a better look:

As I raised the binoculars to my eyes the world closed down to just two things: there was the wolf and there was me. Everything else around me was abstracted out to the generic. I knew there were people around me but I could not distinguish one from another. Around us was a bus but I could not feel the seats and the walls.

There was only the wolf and me. And it was calling to me: See? This. Your home. Come run with us. Come eat with us. Dance in the shadow of the great one.

I had been in Alaska for 5 days.

On the first day I marveled as the sun stayed up longer than I was able.

On the second day I leaned into a pure wind that raised my arms.

On the third day I floated in the sea with whales and climbed to the frozen top of the world.

On the fourth day I walked into a place more like home than I had ever known.

On the fifth day it was the wolf and it was me and I felt a yearning tearing down deep into my soul hunting for my secret, burning a path that said everything you have done to this point was to bring you to this. Now, you decide.

Reading this now, copying it here, is both affirming and embarrassing. In a very pure and simple way that's me and what I want, but on the other hand it sounds silly, strained, and naïve. Is naivety, then, just giving up?

The fourth day was an overnight stay at the Rock Creek Country Inn north of the park. The owners had collected together a variety of cabins, put very comfy beds within, invited people round for a visit, and settled in to handling their other business: training dogs for the Iditarod and other races. I was invited to stay the winter over and be what amounted to a dog handler intern. The dogs liked me. I liked the dogs. There was no phone. The electricity came from a generator that was used only some of the time. The average high temperature in January in that area is about 0 degrees Fahrenheit. That doesn't include the wind. I desperately wanted to stay but couldn't convince myself. Isn't coming "home", isn't that giving up?

(There are pictures of these five days. I should scan them or something. I've been promising myself an Alaska trip journal for years now.)

So now, here's this book, about a guy who did a different kind of giving up. He gave away everything he had, stepped out of society for two years, and then gave away his life.

I'll see what the book says.

(Thanks to Ding and Matt. Matt loaned Ding the book and Ding loaned it to me.)