The Great Search within the Wild

The mountains of Alaska are wild to the extreme. The dangers are staggering. Large, dangerous predators, snow year round in some places, unpredictable rivers, very, very few people in the vicinity. The planes that passed over where the Fairbanks City Transit System bus 142 were mostly just commercial jets at an altitude of 25,000 feet. The mosquitoes are enough to drive anyone crazy. In the Everglades, for example, there may be vast places of dense, treacherous wildnerness, yet it is surrounded by populated areas. Planes fly overhead more frequently. The vast majority is swampland and thus is flat and easy to see for miles around. In Alaska, the forest trees and mountains form more of a barrier between explorers and the outside world.
Was Alexander Supertramp crazy? No. He was socially adept, presumably had no suicidal thoughts or gestures. He had lots of energy and drive, was highly intelligent and was searching for something, and the combination allowed for him to become accustomed to succeeding quickly or faster than the normal rate at most things he attempted. “‘Chris was good at almost everything he ever tried,’ Walt (his father) reflects, ‘which made him supremely overconfident.’” (118) Chris was not humble in the sense that his actions do not reflect it. He had little respect for most boundaries that tie most of us down, such as longing for intimate interpersonal relationships and sex, money, physical insecurity in extreme situations. His excessive hubris clouded his view of reality and thus led him to not reflect and see the dangers of what Alaskan wilderness held. He was impulsive, and if something he attempted did not go the way he wanted, he ran off to the next thing quickly before the reality of his previous failure caught up with him. This is evident in later chapters when he is within the Alaskan bush. Somewhere in the book there is a quote that states by one getting lost in the wilderness, they are actually becoming more and touch with reality; thrown into relief by the extremes of the landscape. Perhaps Alexander Supertramp was searching for that reality he was unable to find anywhere else.