Sarge47

With all the "Bear vs. Les" stuff we had on the site I couldn't help noticing the stories of these two men who followed their dream to live in the wilds of the Alaskan Wilderness. Both Chris McCandless (CM) & Dick Proenneke (DP) set out to actually live their dream, only one made it. The following are my observations and opinions only based on what I've seen & read.

1st, DP, was a realist while CM was a romantic dreamer. DP faced the actual reality of what he was going to be going up against while CM was trying to live out some "Jack London" fantasy. Here's what I've put together regarding the actions & preparations of both men:

D.P.: Learned 1st hand about the environment and took the proper precautions, gaining both the knowledge & experience required to survive the harsh Alaskan weather and lack of game. He carried a high-powered rifle, knew how to skin, clean, & preserve wild game, was a "journeyman" builder, put out the money for all the things he couldn't find in the wild as well as having a bush pilot check up on him every once in a while; & was living in a location known to others, so he could be looked in on to see if he was OK. He had also prepared earlier on by living with other more experienced Alaskans from which he learned the nessasary info needed.

C.M.: Took only a minimum of supplies, trusting into only what he could carry on his back to try to get him through the harsh winter. His finding of the bus as a shelter was just "dumb-luck" that saved him from a, potential earlier demise. His burning of his money showed his foolishness as he could have used it, plus any other cash he could have earned to have properly prepared himself the way DP did as DP had set off to do his thing in the 60s while CM was doing his in the 90s. Also CM counted on knowledge gained only through the knowledge of others that he either wrote down or had in a book on edible plants, but had never taken any actual "hands-on" training. Training that could have saved his life as he well may have know that the plant he had eaten was poisonous from the get-go, there by saving him from a very miserable, early demise. The fact that he had created a 2nd Identity: Alexander Supertramp; and that he was running away from a dysfunctional family situation as well as his "disobedience" to the law in his Kayaking expedition down the river says to me that he was over-confident, and under-prepared. Furthermore he refused to listen to wiser heads about his ultimate destination.

The bottom line is this: One was "prepared", the other wasn't.