Christopher Johnson McCandless at the Magic Bus

I saw the film "Into the Wild" recently and was surprised at my reaction to it. For those who have not seen it, it is the story of Christopher McCandless, who, at the tender age of 22, shuns society and family, gives his life savings to charity and sets out on a two-year journey to find himself and, as he says, to "kill the false being within." His quest leads him to Alaska where he lives out his dream to be completely "alone in the wild" with fatal consequences. At first what struck me about the film was the absolute idealism of McCandless's dream. I felt I could identify with his spirit of adventure and the desire to leave the trappings of civilization behind. After all, who among us has not had such a Waldenesque dream in our youth, to chuck it all and go somewhere far away from all that's familiar to test what we are made of?

The view of Mt. Denali from my campsite in 1994

My own dream was to go backcountry camping in Alaska as well, but when the time came to live out my dream, I wound up only about a hundred yards from the edge of the last public campground in Denali National Park. Why? Because after watching a mandatory park film about the dangers of backcountry camping I realized that there are a lot of things to be afraid of in the Alaskan wilderness. Things like grizzly bears and rampaging moose and wolves and mosquitoes as big and hungry as wolves. I ended up cowering in my tent, barricaded from a swarm of hungry skeeters apparently crazed by the scent of my human pheromomes.  I spent the night listening to their dive bombings, sounds that reminded me of small aircraft looking to land nearby. There I was, in full view of majestic Mount Denali at about as close to sunset as it gets in Alaska in June, and I was trapped in my tent. Needless to say, one night was more than enough. Alaska, my friends, is a whole nuther world.

My campsite at a less remote location in Alaska

I applaud Chris for his courage and daring in attempting to live in and commune with nature alone, unsullied by human contact. But the thing is, Chris's odyssey hurt other people.  His family and friends had no word from him for two years. He just up and disappeared. The new friends he met along the road took him in and cared about him, but he always left before anything was asked of him emotionally. There's a fatal flaw in the kind of spiritual idealism that eats up your heart and causes you to become one of those mean people you're supposedly running away from. It wasn't until the end of his solitary journey that he realized that "happiness is only real when shared." Although "Into the Wild" is a heartwrenching story, there is still a lingering romanticism attached to Chris's fearless trek into the unknown in search of adventure that stirs the soul of the wanderer in me. 

Jeff Korba clowning in Costa Rica

At about the same time I saw this movie, my friend Bill Crumlic was making a video documentary called "On Point" about another dead kid, Jeff Korba, a free-spirited musician who died in 2007 in a car accident in Montana when he was 19. Jeff had heard the same "call of the wild" but headed south, instead, for Costa Rica where he immersed himself in the culture and learned how to rely on his wits far away from his comfort zone. Both Jeff and Chris were strong-willed and full of curiosity for new experiences that tested the limits of their endurance. But that's where the similarity between the two men ends. While Chris McCandless turned himself inward and never looked back, Jeff reached out and put himself into the hands of other people. He is described as "kharma incarnate," "full of good will" and a young man who knew the secret of living each day to its fullest. He craved human companionship as much as Chris shunned it. Jeff left behind a legacy of being good to other people, of knocking down walls and opening up barriers that separate us from one another, and selflessly giving back to the community he lived in.

Two different kids, from two different generations, leaving behind two very different legacies.