A few thoughts on the topic at hand.
Let's keep in mind that Chris had every intention of leaving the Stampede Trail, and that he survived in the backcountry for at least 69 days with minimal supplies. You may call it "stupid" but I see it as a testament to Chris' bravery and resourcefulness. Again, for anyone who thinks what Chris did was foolish, I'd like to see them go out for even a month and survive with what he had to live on. If it hadn't been for the Teklanika, Chris would have succeeded in doing what few seasoned Alaskans would even have attempted.
Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote:
I am exposed continually to what I will call the 'McCandless Phenomenon.' People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically nonexistent [...] When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he [had] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament [...] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide.[15]
There are many perspectives that can be taken on this topic. They will vary widely depending on each persons unique background and point of view. We have learned that two differing perspectives can both be correct. Chris did not come from anything like the environment he died in. He was essentially born with a silver spoon and he rebelled against much of what he knew as life growing up. He loved to read Tolstoy and in many ways was quite similar to him, perhaps if he had survived and had written a novel or two he would have been more like him. I can't help but think that Chris may have fancied himself as a modern Tolstoy giving up all worldly goods and wandering.
Personally I never have and would not ever want to try anything like what Chris did in Alaska. That kind of adventure has always been available nearby but I prefer to take it peace-meal. I like coming home to a good meal, a warm bath and a comfortable bed after a time out in the wilderness. There is a point where it becomes less enjoyable and more difficult to stay out there day after day even when well equipped. Now if I had to survive an extended period in wilderness I most likely would be able to come through it if I had a chance to provision myself for a long stay at the outset. But just to do it as a personal challenge has no appeal. And I think most Alaskans would have a similar view. Its right there every day when you walk out the door, no need to go out and stay out for months at a time.
Chris really did the same thing a lot of northerners do, just in reverse. Many young people from the north are drawn almost hypnotically to the bright lights of the big cities to the south, many wind up on skid row etc and die there. They are not prepared to survive in that hostile city environment.
Coming from the south Chris survived 112 days out on the Stampede trail but his condition deteriorated right from the beginning until he was so weak he could not walk out. Certainly if any locals had any idea of his predicament they would have been there to save him immediately. But no one knew. He was totally depending on his own ability to survive and get out alive at the end of it. He mentioned in his last communication that he knew he may not survive. So he was aware of the danger of bears and accidents, probably not so aware of how real the threat of starvation would be. He did not need to build his own shelter and spent most of his time at the bus but he needed to forage for food and for firewood to stay warm and cook meat. An axe and bucksaw would have been quite useful to him. How far did he have to forage for sticks he could carry? The bus has been sitting there since the 60s and everyone who ever used it had to go get wood to burn using up everything in easy reach first. I would imagine that without cutting tools the trek to get wood daily was pretty long and kept getting longer. So in order to have a fire it was a lot of extra work and energy used up.
Chris was a "Greenhorn" and not resourceful enough. No experienced woodsman would head out with so little provisions and none would have stayed out there and starved to death. Chris survived brief periods in California and Mexico, but the north is much harsher. He really had no experience in the north land. I think Chris was obsessed with the idea of what he was doing to the point of ignoring his real life needs. The hint is in his statement about "killing the false being within". He believed that this experience would somehow transform him into a different and more real being that what he had been. He would find enlightenment and know the Gods truth about life or die trying.
Chris wasn't stupid. But he was a fool. He appears to have been inspired significantly by the book "The Call of the Wild" which is, first and foremost, the story of Buck’s gradual transformation from a tame beast into a wild animal. The second major character John Thornton is a man who was unafraid of the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased. Chris almost seems to become a blend of these two characters from Londons' novel. Unafraid of the wild with only a rifle and turning into a wild animal as he hunts and survives on game. The self portraits of him celebrating his kills look more and more like a man turning into a wild man.
Chris had intended to leave the wilderness but when he couldn't get across the river it seems he gave up and accepted that as a sign of his fate. He returned to the bus and settled into foraging for food. Perhaps he thought that he was really hearing the call of the wild. “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”
Here is the quote from Londons' book that gives the impression that those who know can go on endlessly in the Alaskan wilderness while providing for their needs as they go.
John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased. Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course of the day’s travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept on traveling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come to it. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the bill of fare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, and the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.
To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time they would hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end they would camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt by the heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune of hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs, rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknown rivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest.
The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had been if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life-- only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.
And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails of men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazed through the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near. But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton found a long-barreled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint as to the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun among the blankets.
Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering they found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan. They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giants they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up. But London knew better, much better, and from real life experience in Alaska.
On July 12, 1897, London (age 21) and his brother-in-law James Shepard sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush. This was the setting for some of his first successful stories. London's time in the Klondike, however, was detrimental to his health. Like so many other men who were malnourished in the goldfields, London developed scurvy. His gums became swollen, leading to the loss of his four front teeth. A constant gnawing pain affected his hip and leg muscles, and his face was stricken with marks that always reminded him of the struggles he faced in the Klondike. Father William Judge, "The Saint of Dawson," had a facility in Dawson that provided shelter, food and any available medicine to London and others. His struggles there inspired London's short story, "To Build a Fire", which many critics assess as his best.
The thought of leaving society and living wild and free in the wilderness really is a romantic notion. Many have attempted it, few have succeeded. Personally if I were to try it I would choose the South Moresby Island, the most abundant marine environment in North America. One only has to take a walk along the beach at low tide to pick up a nutritious meal in minutes. The forests provide abundant game as well as red cedar from which to build solid lasting shelter. The climate is neither hot nor cold averaging around 60 degrees year round. Only problem is that its now a national park and world heritage site so one would have to do it on the sly.