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Mindy Nelson

Emre Koyuncu

English 106

11 December 2011

Adventures in the Alaskan Wilderness

Almost everyone needs to take a break from reality every now and then to get away from

their daily life. Some may take a small day trip, others a vacation, or even just getting out of the

house and taking a long walk or car ride may do it for them. For a small amount of people

though, it’s going completely out of state and secluding oneself in the wilderness. This may

sound like something only a crazy person would do. Who would want to live out in the middle of

the wilderness by themself and try to survive? It takes someone with strength and courage to

survive all alone out in the wilderness, but Timothy Treadwell and Chris McCandless both found

ways to survive in the Alaskan Wilderness.

Timothy Treadwell, the main character from Grizzly Man, was a well-known as a grizzly

fanatic. Tim grew up in Long Island, but after many years of fascination about the bears, he

decided to go to Alaska to study them. He spent 13 consecutive summers studying the Alaskan

grizzly bears. He used his camera to capture footage of the bears, no matter what they were

doing (fighting, eating, hunting, or even when they got near him). His main goal in life was to

eventually make a documentary about the bears so more people would be educated about them

and not want to hurt the bears. In his last two summers Amie Huguenard accompanied him on

his journey. In his 13th summer, he and Amie were attacked by the bears.

Chris McCandless, the main character in Into the Wild, on the other hand went to Alaska

for a different reason. He wanted to get away from his family for personal reasons. He felt if he

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went to Alaska, he would be able to eventually find himself and return home to his family after a

while. Chris left everything he ever had and headed to Alaska. He left his car, donated all of his

savings, and never told anyone a thing. He changed his name to “Alexander Supertramp” so

other people wouldn’t know who he really was. In the end, Chris ended up eating a poisonous

plant that lead to his death.

Both Tim and Chris spend time in the Alaskan wilderness both doing what they loved

and trying to find themselves. Each was determined to come out of the wilderness a different

person. Chris and Tim have similar and different techniques on how they went about living on

their own, their relationships with other, how they escaped society to find themselves, their own

unique deaths (both thinking they would never die in Alaska), and how (or if) they contacted

their family while they were away. Just like the characters, the directors also had their own way

of setting these movies up.

Tim had many different ways of how he survived and lived on his own in the wilderness.

One thing Tim was against was killing any sort of animals. Common logic would be to kill an

animal for the meat in order to get protein and help you survive, but Tim was against it. When he

would come to Alaska, he would bring a lot of candy and soda that would be a majority of his

diet. He also ate berries and plants on the land, but most of his diet was food you could find at

home.

On the other hand, Chris hunted animals for most of his diet. He always killed small

animals that he would be able to consume without the rest of the meat rotting and going bad. At

one point in the movie, he kills a relatively large moose. He tries different methods to protect the

meat so he can save it and eat it consecutively for a few days. Pretty soon, the moose starts to rot

and maggots start forming on the moose. He realizes that now he would not be able to eat any of

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the meat from the moose. In his diary he states: my biggest regret was killing the moose (Into the

Wild). Chris also had book about plants and animal that were dangerous and edible in the

Alaskan wilderness. He used this book to help him find other things to eat besides what he

hunted.

Tim and Chris both had to set up shelter in one way or another too in order to survive.

Tim was only there in the summers, so he used a tent but also had tarps and other things over the

top to help protect from the rain and any other elements. The tarps also were used to help

camouflage his tent so people wouldn’t find it. Chris was there for a longer period of time and at

times had to suffer in the winter. He found a bus that he entitled “the magic bus” that he used to

set up his camp in. He slept in the bus and also stayed in the bus to get away from the unbearable

weather conditions outside.

When it came to Tim’s relationships with people, he didn’t communicate much. Tim just

wanted to be away from everyone and felt like at time he could communicate better with the

bears and the other animals in the wilderness than he could with humans. At times, he would see

poachers while he was in Alaska or he would see people trying to catch him on film like he was a

movie star. It is questioned sometimes why Tim didn’t come out of hiding when the poachers

were there. The bears would go up to the poachers and they, in turn, would mess with the bears

and torment them. If Tim was there to protect the bears, why didn’t he approach the poachers?

Although Tim didn’t want to communicate with many people, he did have one significant person

he did communicate with. During his last two summers, his said “girlfriend” Amie came up to

Alaska with him. She was one of the only few people that Tim trusted in this crazy world. The

other main person he communicated with was the guy who flew him back and forth to Alaska,

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Chris had a much more different approach when it came to his relationships with

different people. When Chris decided to head off to Alaska, he only drove his car so far then left

it abandoned on the side of the road. With leaving his car behind, Chris relied on meeting new

people to help him get rides to continue on his journey to Alaska. Sometimes he would spend

multiple days with families while on his journey. There were times where he spent time with a

family while they set up a flea market and he sat there and sold books for them. Another person

he met was an older gentleman named Ron. He spent some nights at Ron’s house. At one point,

Ron had a box of items that he sets out for Chris. He tells Chris that these things (a machete, a

fishing pole, and other useful items) will help him out in the wilderness. Besides Chris’s sister,

Ron is one of the closest people we see Chris get close to. Ron offers to drive Chris 100 miles to

help get him started on his Alaskan adventure. At one point, Chris and Ron are sitting at the

bottom of a large, rocky hill. Chris starts climbing up and gets to the top and is trying to

convince Ron to come up and look at the view. As Ron starts up, he keeps saying he can’t do it

and stops. Chris doesn’t let Ron stop though. He keeps telling him he’s worthless and would

never to make it to the top being the age he his. This makes Ron more determined to prove Chris

wrong and eventually makes it to the top. Ron gets so close to Chris emotionally, he tells Chris

he wants to adopt him as his son so Chris can carry on Ron’s family name, but Chris doesn’t

want to be adopted. He just wants to go out and live his life. This relationship between Chris and

Ron is one of the crucial parts of the movie. Chris did not want to get close to many people on

his journey to Alaska because he was trying to escape reality. Their relationship shows just how

much one person can care for you, when you don’t want a relationship with anyone to begin

with.

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Tim doesn’t just spend one summer in the Alaskan wilderness; he spends 13 summers

there. With every time he went back, he tried to find more ways to protect the bears. He wanted

them to be safe and therefore, he wanted to protect like they were his so-called “children”. The

more time he spent with the bears, the closer he felt to them. When he was with humans, he felt

that they didn’t understand him or they thought what he was doing was stupid and would not

amount to anything. Brinks stated that Timothy acted too much like a child and didn’t really act

like a man and that Timothy was “living a child’s fantasy existence with Alaskan brown bears”

(Brinks 308). Timothy is also considered to act like a child in other ways too. He was always

mimicking the bears’ actions and doing the things that they did (rolling in their beds so he would

smell like a bear). He would also name each individual animal just like a child would do with

their stuffed animals. Many think that the Alaskans hated Timothy because they thought what

Tim was doing was wrong. The Alaskans thought that humans and wild animals should not go

together because it could lead to serious problems. They were afraid that Tim would domesticate

the bears too much and this would put the bears in more danger around poaching season.

Chris finds his own ways to escape society. His main reason for escaping was because of

his parents. They were going through a divorce and wanted him and his sister to pick sides. He

didn’t want to deal with the stress of the divorce anymore so he decided to pack up his life and

hit the road without telling anyone. When he introduces himself to someone, he introduces

himself not as Chris McCandless, but as Alexander Supertramp. He doesn’t want anyone to

know anything about him so he used this alias when talking to new people. He wanted a fresh

start and didn’t want people to know the real him. One day while searching for food, he eats

some berries that he thought were edible but was actually poisonous. He found the berries in his

book and some of the symptoms were semi-paralysis and starvation. He became increasingly thin

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and could not eat anything. On his last note, he writes “happiness is only real when shared”.

After he writes this, he signs his real name, Chris McCandless. Whenever he wrote anything

else, he always wrote Alex on it, but not on his last time. He realized, yes he had found himself

while he was away, but he was lonely. He realized that he enjoyed being around others and

sharing his life with different people, no matter the circumstances. Chris only wanted to go to

Alaska to get away from his digressing family situation. He was no longer happy living at home

with his family and therefore, he left for Alaska. Though his plan was to return back home after

finding his true self, that didn’t happen. He eventually died from the complications with eating

the poisonous berries.

It was through their different adventures of escaping society, living on their own, and

their relationships with others that each Chris and Tim had their similarities and differences.

Each wanted to get away from people, but in the end, they both died. Tim initially died doing

what he loved: being with the bears and trying to film them to make a documentary to educate

everyone else about the bears. Chris died a slow and painful death. As he was dying, he realized

that he wanted to be with people and not be all alone in life. Both characters took into extreme

accounts, such as weather, survival techniques, sparse food situation, and lack of companionship.

When it came to death, Tim always knew there was a chance that he could die while

living with the bears. It is a risk to anyone and everyone who are around wild animals that they

could easily attack at any moment. Tim had a few close calls while in the wild. There would be

times that he would be filming two fighting bears from a very close distance. They could have

easily turned and went after him. He also would have bears stand up to him and he would just

push on them to make them go away. He was lucky he was never attacked before. Time also

stated that if he was ever attacked by a bear, he wouldn’t regret it. He lived for the bears and

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would have done anything and everything to protect him. It was almost time for Tim and Amie

to return back home when they were attacked by the bears. They were up on their campsite when

they were attacked by the bears. The camera had been on, but the lens cap was on the camera.

Tim and Amie were found by Tim’s friend, Willy Fulton. Willy always took Tim to and from the

Alaskan wilderness. Tim and Amie were found up at their campsite where they had been

attacked. The only thing left of them was some body parts. The bear that attacked them was

killed and they opened to bear up to prove he had eaten them.

On the other hand, Chris never really thought he would. He just wanted to go out into the

wild to escape reality and find himself. Chris died much differently than Tim did. It was the

middle of winter and Chris was in dire need of food. There was not much around left to eat. He

knew there was more food on the other side of the river, but when he went to cross, the river had

rose and he was unable to cross. As he did try to cross, he slipped and fell into the river, but

luckily, he was able to grab onto some branches and pull himself back up to safety. Since he

couldn’t get across, he had to find another way to get food. He had a berry and plant book with

him so he started using that to find food. He found some berries and when he looked in his book,

he thought they were edible. He was desperate so he ate them. A couple of days later, the side

effects started to affect him. He could barely get up and walk and look deathly sick. Chris

grabbed his book and started looking for the plant he had eaten. On two side by side pages, there

were two fruits that looked almost exactly alike. One of them was poisonous and the other was

edible. Chris had eaten the poisonous plant by mistake. This plant led to his digestive system to

mess up, which allowed him to eat nothing. Therefore, Chris eventually starved to death

(Forager’s Harvest). Chris was found dead in the magic bus two weeks after his death.

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When it came to Tim’s relationship with his family, he had lived a fairly normal life. He

grew up in a middle class family and had four siblings. Everyone thought he was normal, but

then as he got older, he got into drugs. At one point in his life, he almost died of a drug overdose.

After this incident, he realized that if he wanted to protect the bears, he needed to quit with the

drugs and alcohol. He couldn’t be drunk and protect the bears. While he was away, he didn’t

communicate much with his family. He never sent letters home to let him know how he was

doing or if he was still alive.

For the first few months while Chris was away, his parents thought he was at school.

They got letters “sent” from the school on how he was doing and what he was up to, but it was

all fake. Eventually, he just stopped with the letters. The letters he did send home, his sister hid

them and she eventually showed them to her parents. They were devastated that he had just left

everything behind and took off. Chris took this time to show his parents that he needed to get

away from them for putting him in awkward positions (like picking sides when they talked of

divorce). Chris always said he was closest to his sister, and she is the one we hear narrating the

movie at different times.

The way Grizzly Man was presented was much different than how Into the Wild was

presented. Grizzly Man was mainly a documentary. The director, Werner Herzog, was shown

talking to some of the people that loved Timothy and showed different aspects of people when

they found out about his death. Herzog also included a lot of self-footage of what Treadwell

initially shot of himself. He incorporates his work and Tim’s work to make this documentary for

Tim. Tim always wanted people to know he was out there to gain more knowledge about the

bears in order to eventually educate everyone else about them.

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In Into the Wild, the movie is set up differently by the director of the movie, Sean Penn.

Into the Wild is based off the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. He based this movie on the

book so he had to make it as real as possible. In order to keep the viewer entertained, he would

alternate the scenes. He would show a scene on how someone helped him get part way on his

journey to Alaska, then the next seen would should him actually in the Wilderness. By using

flashbacks and flash forwards, this allowed a unique style to the movie. This allowed Penn to not

make everything run together. This allowed the viewer to see all the people he met along the way

and his interactions with his family, to how he hunted in the wild and how he survived.

Another difference between the two movies is how they portray that Tim and Chris die.

In Grizzly Man, we know right away that Tim dies from a bear attack. They do not keep this

information away until the end like Into the Wild did. On the other hand, you have to watch Into

the Wild all the way through to see that Chris ends up dying. This is one way to help keep

someone entertained while watching the movie. The viewer stays tuned to see if Chris will

survive his journey in the Alaskan wilderness.

Chris McCandless and Timothy Treadwell both had their unique ways to survive in the

Alaskan wilderness. They both went to Alaska to escape reality and to try and find themselves.

They both hit some highs and lows along the way but they both kept going strong. They both

knew the risks and dangers of living in the wild and trying to survive on the land, but both were

willing to take the risk. They each had their own unique ways of doing things too. Although both

of their journeys in a tragic way, they each told their own story.

Works Cited

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Brinks, Ellen. “Uncovering the Child in Timothy Treadwell’s Feral Tale.” ProQuest. September

2008: 304-323. The Lion and the Unicorn. Web. 19 October 2011.

Grizzly Man. Dir. Werner Herzog. Perf. Carol Dexter, Kathleen Parker, Warren Queeney, and

Timothy Treadwell. Lions Gate Films, 2005. DVD.

Into the Wild. Dir. Sean Penn. Perf. Emile Hirsh, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn. Paramount

Vantage, 2007. DVD

“Into the Wild and other Poisonous Plant Fables.” http://foragersharvest.com. Forager’s Harvest,

24 March 2010. Web. 23 October 2011.

The Purdue OWL. Purdue University Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 19 October 2011.