George Catlin's Dangerous Journey

“Journeys, planned and unplanned, are an inevitable part of life. Their consequences, foreseen or unforeseen, play an important part in a person’s growth.”

Everybody has a goal and it is impossible to know what drives us to want to take risks to achieve our dreams, but people sometimes do crazy, dangerous things when trying to their goals. For example, Aengus walked through hilly lands and hollow lands for years just to find the love of his life. Farah Ahmedi climbed a mountain with a prosthetic leg to reach freedom and protect her family. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fought two vicious snakes to protect his human family. All these characters had different reasons for their actions, but what was similar in all of the characters was that they all had determination, desire, and the ability to take on hardship to reach their goals.

Many Alaskan survivalist and “natives” agree McCandless had the same reckless idealism of men who had perished in Alaska previously. Jon Krakauer relates Chris to three such men who died in Alaska: Rossellini, Waterman, and McCunn. Rossellini conducted a primitive human survival experiment and he concluded: “For over 30 years I programmed and conditioned myself to this end. In the last 10 of it I would say I realistically experienced the physical, mental, and emotional reality of the Stone Age. I learned it is not possible for human beings, as we know them, to live off the land” (75). Despite Rossellini being a trained survivalist he met the same fate as McCandless who was not nearly as experienced. Another factor that enticed McCandless to venture to Alaska was the allure of nature promised by transcendentalist thinkers. Many of these authors romanticized nature, and were not an Alaskan survivalist. Transcendentalist author John London spent one season of a year in Alaska in a cabin, and Thoreau’s definition of isolation in the wilderness included going into town to do laundry and for hot meals. These authors glossed over the difficulties, challenges, and human deaths in the wild. McCandless’ choice to follow authors with little survival experience verifies a reckless

Waking up to discover the immense, pristine wilderness of Alaska, listening to the birds chirping their sounds while feeling the tremble of your heart beating through your veins. Trees as far as one can see with rolling hills and distant peaks covered with unblemished snow. The sounds of streams growing larger until they rush over a fall, and into an untainted lake. Pondering the true meaning of life while observing Mother Nature’s true grace. Very few people can relate to this scene of the wild. One of them being Christopher Johnson McCandless, a young pioneer and traveler, who was determined to seek the truth no matter what the cost.

“A man who has been through bitter experiences and traveled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time”- Homer. Why do people go on journeys? What is the benefit, if anything? The Odyssey, written by Homer, describes the life of a man, Odysseus, who undertakes a journey to reach a destination. Leaving his home town of Ithaca, he arrives at Troy for the Trojan War.

One example was on the battlefield. Whenever he fought in wars, he always showed courage. He never cowered away, but instead he kept fighting. In the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, he almost got killed, but that didn’t take his courage away (TSHA 1). He fought through the injuries which got the attention of General Andrew Jackson (TSHA 1). General Andrew Jackson saw that Sam Houston never gave up even when he was severely injured (TSHA 1). Soon after the battle finished, they became friends because of his courage (TSHA 1).

Many find nature to be beautiful and captivating, but others take it to the extreme and inhibit themselves to live on its contents. Living off the land can be temperamental while also being critical to one’s survival. Chris McCandless, according to researchers, can easily be comparable to the similar situations of John Waterman, Carl McCunn, and Everett Ruess. All of these men had one goal: To seek out a greater purpose in nature. However, complications and puzzling disappearances brought them to their fate. Jon Krakauer provides examples of men analogous to McCandless’ experience to distinguish how crucial it is when someone decides to make a delirious decision to abandon their former life for a new one.

Beowulf set his ego aside and hurdled into the face of danger in order to defeat a greater evil and liberate the people of Heorot from the demonic grasp of Grendel. The crew aboard the Challenger brought America together and helped us insure the safety of future astronauts. Tom pushed his body to the edge to live the life he dreamed of. Risks are imperative in life. Even beginning life, they are our instinct. We learn to crawl despite the bruises on our knees. We learn to walk no matter how many falls we endure. As we become further aware of the world around us, somewhere along the way, we experience failure; at that point, many people attempt to eradicate most risks from their life. But where would we be without our sense of exploration, our willingness to try new things? In order to push one’s boundaries, move forward as a society, and give purpose to life people must be willing to take risks.

Writer and Analyst; Kathryn Height; criticizes the work (more specifically the paintings/drawings) of Artist George Catlin during the time of the 1830’s and its parallel to the Indian Removal Act. Hight does so in the report “ Doomed to Perish”: George Catlin’s Depictions of the Mandan”. Hight highlights Catlin’s work, describes his subjects, and carefully provides evidence throughout her criticism report convincing the audience that his paintings lead to the covered true history of the Mandans (Native American tribe on the Mississippi River).

In the first passage of Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction novel, he argues that Christopher McCandless was thought to be an avid survivor of all terrain. In his two year journey, McCandless learns to live off  “wild plants,” experiencing his “adventurous spirit” across North America. He encounters many people from Mexico to South Dakota, who set a trend of wonderment in what a “twenty-four-year-old vagabond” could be doing traveling the country with nothing but a backpack. His “figure out all on his own” attitude suited his “nomadic” life well. The “radical” lifestyle provides McCandless with a sense of newly found “solitude” until his unfortunate “great Alaskan odyssey,” that ultimately ends his life.

Life on the road is not suitable for everyone. Not everyone has the capabilities, personality, or intelligence to live their life on the road. In the novel Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer, the main character, Chris McCandless experiences discomfort on the road such as: starvation, dehydration, traveling on foot for many days, and many more. To live on the road is a personal decision that people, who are like McCandless, make. To begin, living on the road is risking your life on a game of chance.

Thousands would lose their lives in the Civil War, but the risk was worth the reward of having a United States of America in President Lincoln’s opinion.

Walt Disney once said,”We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Attempting to accomplish something unfamiliar isn’t a simple responsibility. It requires a lot of courage, perseverance, and personal motivation. William Bradford’s Journal about the expedition to the new land, “Of Plymouth Plantation” and the excerpt from Tom Wolfe’s book about orbiting around Earth for the first time, “The Right Stuff” both incorporate the theme of adventure and question the boundaries of convenience, but the obstacles faced by the pilgrims were more arduous than those faced by John Glenn.

How brave the explorers of old were. How brave they were to sail into the unknown. How brave they were to risk falling off the edge of the world. How brave they were to risk death, or quite possibly something worse, all to satiate their lust for knowledge. They wanted to learn. They wanted to teach. They wanted to actually benefit humanity.

Being adventurous is how you start to understand who you really are. Many people believe it is dangerous to travel, not worth it. But I believe, the world is dangerous. There are shootings everyday but getting out there and risking it is just living. Being adventurous shows you how others have to live, what so many people deal with every day. Or what so many people get to see every day, the beautiful yet cruel world we live in. There is a purpose for everything here, it is meant to be seen. We are not here to work everyday and then go home to rest and do it all over again, we were made to make a difference and to understand the world. Mountains were made to climb, oceans were made to be seen, and landmarks were too, “in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a