I knew I was in trouble when my husband told me I could only pack two pair of underwear for a ten day trip. I didn’t worry, though, until he arrived home one day with freeze dried tuna, a plastic tube filled with peanut butter and two large backpacks. One evening he put rocks into one of the backpacks, slid it onto my shoulders and ordered me to run/walk up and down our stairs ten times in preparation for our upcoming trip. I needed to be able to carry 40 pounds on my back in addition to half the weight of a canoe, he informed me. We were going “into the wild,” the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada, where we would canoe and portage some sixty miles in seven days. (No RVs, steaks and lawn chairs!) After paying a guide extra money to drive us deep into the pristine woods of Algonquin National Park, our guide requested we fill out a form indicating our route and expected departure date. He clearly warned that if we did not exit the park on time, we would bear the cost of a rescue operation.
“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. Thank you.”
This is the note I imagined as our guide warned us of the dangers of traveling in the wilderness. The quote above is not mine, but rather the actual words of a note written by Christopher Johnson McCandless, a twenty-two year old Emory University graduate, who donates his college fund to charity, burns all the money in his wallet and turns his back on society in order to head “into the wild.”
What is it about nature (the wild) that attracts us?
