Into the Wild Chapter 8 Summary

Here's chapter 8. Again, the remainder of the script is in the comments.
Chapter 8
When Krakauer published his article in Outside, he received a large amount of mail. Some of them were very critical of McCandless. Much of the negative mail came from Alaskans themselves. They called him things such as nuts, and one person saying that there is nothing positive about McCandless’ wilderness doctrine. Some mentioned how he wasn’t prepared; and some even attacked Krakauer as being a kook if he doesn’t think McCandless is a kook. One writer even wrote an article which said that McCandless’ “ignorance could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a boy scout manual. Namely, most of those responding thought that McCandless was a greenhorn who went into the wilderness to solve his problems, only to wind up dying alone.
There are many people who go up to Alaska to be on their own. There was one man in the 70’s who disappeared without a trace, a Vietnam vet who built a cabin and wound up starving to death, and another person of special note, Gene Rosellini.
Krakauer met Rosellini wants on Prince William Sound; he was carrying a log. The locals called him the mayor of Hippie Cove because of all the hippies that lived in the same area he did. Rosellini was something of a genius. He was an athlete, top student, came from a really well of family of restaurant owners. All of a sudden, he decided to head north to Alaska and try and live as a pre-civilization man. He would even carve logs with a stone. After 30 years trying to live more and more off the land, he realized it was impossible in modern times and decided to end his experiment. Before he left for civilization, he was found with a knife through his heart; the authorities believed it was suicide.
Rosellini’s death was the front page of the Anchorage Daily News. Another wanderer, John Mallon Waterman, coincidentally was born in 1952 in the same neighborhood McCandless was born into. Waterman’s father was a musician and writer who wrote some president speeches, and was also a mountaineer, and taught his three sons to climb. John, the middle son, was a natural. In 1969, he climbed Mt. McKinley (Denali - the largest mountain in America); by the time he enrolled in university, he was world famous as a mountain climber.
Standing at 5’3’ John Waterman was pretty weird wearing capes and Elton John glasses. When he was a teen his parents divorced and his father wanted nothing to do with him or his brother. One time, his father even went to Alaska on a climb and never even stopped by to say hello. John’s brother, Bill, lost a leg hopping trains, he later disappeared without a trace. Also, 8 of John’s friends died in either accidents or suicide.
In 1978, Waterman managed to climb Mt. Hunter, south of Denali, of which nobody had yet climbed the southeast route. He spent 145 days alone on the mountain and managed to summit. When he finished he got back to Fairbanks broke, and got a job washing dishes. He tried to run for a local school board promoting unrestricted sex and legalizing hallucinogenics, which he lost then tried for president of the United States with the Feed the Starving Party. He was to climb Denali alone for publicity.
He tried in the winter of 1979, but couldn’t manage after 14 days. He tried again, but his cabin burned down with all his gear, notes, and poetry. He committed himself to an asylum, but left after two weeks. He tried to summit again in early 1981. He met a fellow climber named Stump who said that Waterman didn’t seem all there. He didn’t even have most of his gear. He even returned his radio. Waterman was last seen on Ruth Glacier on April 1. However, climbers later found a box of gear with a note that read : “3-13-81, My last kiss 1:42 PM.”
Another person McCandless is compared to is Carl McCunn. McCunn was a Texan who moved to Alaska in the 1970s because of the oil boom. In 1981, McCunn had a pilot fly him into the wilderness with five hundred rolls of film, two rifles (a .22 and .30-.30), a shotgun, and 1400 pounds of supplies. He planned on staying through till August.
Unfortunately, he forgot to schedule a return flight. As August passed and no plane came, his supplies started running out. In his diary he mentions how he should have planned better. When he was duck hunting one day, a plan flew over head. He waved both hand and the plan circled and flew away because it couldn’t land. McCunn was planning on being rescued, but rescue never came. On the back of his hunting license it read, for SOS raise two hands. One hand means everything is okay. On the plane’s second pass, he raised one hand up in a fist pump cheer. The pilot probably thought he was okay.

[@brandonecks9068]

Here's the rest of chapter 8!
Chapter 8
As winter got worse, and his supplies disappeared, McCunn still thought somebody would come. But no one ever did. He was too far into the wild. As the winter came, he developed frost bite in his hands, feet, and nose. He wrote over a hundred pages in his diary. He also realized he was too weak to walk to the nearest fort. In late November, he took is .30-.30 and shot himself in the head after writing a goodbye in his diary. Troopers found his body two months later frozen .
McCandless has some similarities with all of these men, but none of them are exact. McCandless knew no one would find him unlike McCunn, and he wasn’t mentally ill like Waterman. McCandless may have been new to the backcountry, but he wasn’t incompetent. He lasted 113 days in the wild. He wasn’t a nutcase or a sociopath, but it’s hard to say what he was. Krakauer calls him a pilgrim perhaps. A better comparison would be to study a 20 year old adventurer in Utah in 1934. There, Everett Ruess walked into the desert and never came out.

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[@carterpizano]

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[@josephwilliams2243]

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[@kepler180]

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