I grew up in northern Canada, hunting and fishing for recreation. Having many friends in Alaska, the terrain and natural features are essentially identical. The only difference being we have more Polar Bears instead of Grizzlies.

I didn’t find anything “inspiring” about this movie. I saw it as a mindless trainwreck – made more so by an ungrateful man-child who had been given every advantage by his parents.

I come from more humble roots than Chris. I had to work to pay my way through university, I didn’t have a “college fund” with tens of thousands of dollars handed to me by upper middle class parents to pay for my Ivy League education. I ultimately graduated with several undergrad degrees (Hons) and a Masters.

I still haven’t forgotten my roots and continue to hunt and fish on a regular basis. My freezer, in fact, doesn’t hold a single piece of domestic meat or poultry. It is stock full of moose, caribou, partridge, grouse, snowshoe hare, ducks and geese.

I’m sorry for those of you who venerate Chris as some sort of latter-day martyr. He wasn’t. He was a dilettante that died a pointless and wholly preventable death. The only thing I am grateful for is the fact that no one knew where he was, so no Land SAR teams had to expend any effort fruitless looking for him.

I just returned home today after a long day afield Moose Hunting. I walked over 15 miles over terrain that is even rougher than the area Chris died. I’m almost embarrased that this man-child died so close to human development when he was attempting to make some grand statement. All he really accomplished was to remove himself from the gene pool and put himself in the running for a “Darwin Award.” Chris is not someone to venerate or admire. He is to be pitied.

We spend the entire movie grimacing through hackneyed horse-shit like this gem:
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Ron Franz: I’m going to miss you when you go.

Christopher McCandless: I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God’s place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.

Ron Franz: Yeah. I am going to take stock of that. You know I am. I want to tell you something. From bits and pieces of what you have told me about your family, your mother and your dad… And I know you have problems with the church too… But there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds to me you don’t mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines through you.

(The sun suddenly shines through the clouds!)

Christopher McCandless: Holy shit!
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Now with that idiotic sentiment indoctrinated into Mr. Franz, Christopher McClueless later proceeds to scrawl “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED” into a book to let all of you know that the warmth you thought you felt in your hearts during that sunbeam scene was actually based in insipid nonsense.

Can any of you honestly claim to not have had the urge to throw a rock at the screen during that ode to the apple scene? Painfully corny.

That this movie has 8.2/10 rating with almost 80,000 votes on IMDB is remarkable and disconcerting. It’s almost enough to make you want to abandon involvement with society and go die alone in a fucking bus in Alaska.