This means that the mountains are about to give him the desire he is searching for by setting out into the Alaskan wilderness and temporarily separating him from society, an opportunity he took during the course of his life. All three of these men McCandless, Thoreau, and Krakauer shared this value in life, making this a suitable epigraph to include in this work of nonfiction, especially in this chapter for it ties many perspectives of the recurrent free-spirited
Early Americas best explores of the Rocky Mountains were the fur trappers. These trappers would explore Colorado’s interior in search of beaver pelts. They would interact and trade with trappers and people of different nations. Because of the fur traders that ventured into Colorado they would become the guiding force that helped America expand west and be the leading cause to the decrease of beaver, bison and other large ungulates populations. From reading A Colorado History and the excerpt of Rufus Sages Rocky Mountain Life, I will answer the questions:
Journal 1 Krakauer, Jon. Into The Wild. New York: Villard, 1996. Print. Journal 2
Into the Wild Journals Passage: “S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is NO JOKE. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening.
"An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe," by Benjamin Madley is a significant piece in explaining Native American history. It helps shed a light on a dark chapter in American history that has been often overlooked by many. Madley's book provides a detailed account of the systematic extermination of the Native American population in California from the 1840s through the 1870s. By delving into the factors that fueled this genocide, such as greed for land and resources, white supremacist ideology, and state-sanctioned violence, Benjamin Madley examines the disturbing atrocities committed against Indigenous communities. His research draws from a wide range of sources, including archival materials and primary
I had the opportunity to go to Mexico and visit the Yucatan rainforest and this lead me to be able to explore nature and feel the peaceful impact it can have on someone 's life. Chris McCandless was determined to create a new life for himself and be the one to control his own destiny. “Chris changed his name, gave the entire balance of a twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet…. His family had no idea where he was or what had become of him until his remains turned up in Alaska”. This quote is from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and shows how McCandless left everything from his old life in order to create a new life for himself.
John Muir was an environmental philosopher and passionate advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His childhood in the wilderness and his deeply religious upbringing helped shape his vision for the future. His primary focus was to preserve land from human use. He often clashed with conservationists, who felt human interests and needs were more important than the value of nature. Muir’s passion and enthusiasm for nature was evident in his writings.
For years, man and nature have coexisted in harmony, but in recent years, man and nature have become increasingly disconnected, as air conditioning, GMO’s, and other innovations have been made to combat the natural way of life. Some people, such as Christopher McCandless, wish to be one with nature again. As his journey into the Alaskan wilderness proved, nature and man have a glorious and close, but sometimes the unforgiving and hostile relationship, as some men admire nature, but nature is not forgiving of simple mistakes as some minor misdoings can seal one’s fate. This is proven in Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, as nature was unforgiving of Christopher’s mistakes while attempting to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. This relationship
In his 1995 essay “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon declares that “the time has come to rethink wilderness” (69). From the practice of agriculture to masculine frontier fantasies, Cronon argues that Americans have historically defined wilderness as an “island,” separate from their polluted urban industrial homes (69). He traces the idea of wilderness throughout American history, asserting that the idea of untouched, pristine wilderness is a harmful fantasy. By idealizing wilderness from a distance, he argues that people justify the destruction of less sublime landscapes and aggravate environmental conflict.
The perception of wilderness can be problematic. One of the most prominent points that Cronon made in his evaluation is the ideology that wilderness is an illusion to escape reality. This perception can be ambiguous because it segregates humanity from nature, by establishing the idea that wilderness is separate from everyday life. Also, Cronon calls attention to the issue of dividing the land and calling it wilderness. The issue of this isolation is that it disintegrates humans and nature, rather than bringing them more in unity.
The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.
The Oregon Trail: Some reasons why the Pioneers decided to go along the Oregon trail and head west were to find opportunity, have free land, good farmland, large forests, free of diseases, and to find jobs. What was the Oregon trail like? - Many diseases like typhoid fever, Cholera, dysentery, Diphtheria, and measles. - They traveled 15 miles on a average day and 18-20 on a good day.
The Effects of the World State vs. The Savage Reservation In the book, Brave New World By Aldous Huxley the way that drugs, intimacy and social conditioning differentiate for the World State and the savage reservation is very different in the way they use them . The drug that is in the world State is Soma which makes you feel happy like any other drug and is seen as the perfect drug because there are no side effects. The way that Soma is used in the World State is that when you are feeling depressed, you take one or more small Tablet that contain the drug. One example that I found was when Lenina “swallowed six half-gramme tablets of Soma, lay down on her bed and within ten minutes had embarked for lunar eternity. ”(140).
Hunting Benefits All Hunting is seen by some present-day people as crooked and dishonorable, while it is really the act of protecting the health of animals for the future. Hunting is a simple and beneficial way to help animals in ways that some people may not understand. What people may not know is that “...the majority of the American public supports hunting even if they don’t personally participate, with about 79 percent of adult Americans nationwide indicating they approve of legal hunting” (“Understanding Hunting”). This percentage of people know the true value of hunting and the betterment it has on our world today. Hunting is a very logical and beneficial way to help animals, along with the hunters themselves.
He also explained that just as the deers are afraid of the wolves , so are the mountains afraid of the deer and the other species with the fear of losing its vegetation. For this he has phrased that “The wilderness we hunt is the salvation of the world” which means that that it must not be destroyed. His main point here is that only the land can understand the true significance of an individual who is playing its role in the ecosystem. This is story that tells us the importance of very living species in nature and our eco system. If anything or any specie is absent, then there is a high probability of imbalance in eco system.