A picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe more.

 

“Steve on Flickr,” uploaded on April 27^th, 2005, by Jason Michael.

 

“Alex used to sit at the bar in Cabaret and read that belt for hours on end,” says Westerberg, “like he was translating hieroglyphics for us.  Each picture he’d carved into the leather had a long story behind it.”  – Wayne Westerberg, p. 68
 

First, is the image of an engraved leather belt, akin to the one McCandless created.

Besides his incredible story, McCandless left behind a loving family and a group of people he came into contact with, all of whom came to deeply care for him.  Material possessions are far and few between; all that is truly left are his memories, what can be pieced together.  These, however, are intangible, the majority of which we rely on Krakauer and his sources to provide for us, as the readers.  The tangible evidence – what few remains there were – is what is most valuable as it is only from McCandless himself that we will ever gain insight – what little there is – into what was going on.  The leather belt McCandless engraved tells a deeper story, gives more meaning to who he was, than any other artifact.  Inscriptions detailed in the text on pages 51-52, include (but are not limited to) the name ALEX, his initials, a hitchhiker’s thumb, and Westerberg’s house.  All of the engravings are symbols of what was important to Alex, the places and people he came into contact with in his life that meant something.  Also evident is the notion that there is no turning around and going back, shown by an engraved NO U-TURN sign.  That engraving in and of itself speaks a great deal about the character of McCandless, of his determination.  It is evident that Westerberg was important to McCandless – the fact that he engraved his house onto his belt is proof.  Additionally, McCandless’s pride over the belt and the story that it told illustrates the pride he himself felt over his journey, despite the fact that he did not always show it.   

 

  

“Rice on White on Flickr,” uploaded on January 3^rd, 2006, by Crystl.
 

“Cooked a lot of rice.  You’d think he would of got tired of it, but he never did.  Said he could live for a month of nothing but twenty-five pounds of rice.”  – Borah, p. 63
 

Second is an image of cooked, long grain rice.  

Rice was one of the most important sources of nourishment for McCandless.  As it was mention by Borah, McCandless claimed that he could live on twenty-five pounds for a month.  Why, then, would he leave Gallien and head off into the bush with nothing but a ten pound bag of rice (p. 5) in his backpack?  Not only is that not enough rice for even one month but he had intended to stay in the bush for approximately three to four months (from May until August).  There is no way that McCandless would have been able to survive, even he knew that.  This error, for lack of a better word, is one of the any similar contradictions throughout the narrative.  Moreover, I find it extremely ironic that McCandless died, in part, because of starvation all the while having donated his money in effort to ending starvation.  The rice is one of the many examples of his naiveté that eventually cost him his life.    
 

 

“Myrtilles on Flickr,” uploaded on December 27^th, 2005, by Bibi.
  

“On August 12, he wrote what would prove to be the final words in his journal: ‘Beautiful Blueberries.’” – Krakauer, p. 199
 

Third is a shot of blueberries. 

One of the most impressive facts about McCandless’s personality was, for me, his ability to find the good and the beauty in objects and instances that others might not.  Similarly, there are many occasions where McCandless was unable to see the good that was there, or the positive parts of something that the general public would see as positive; maybe if he had been able to, this journey never would have occurred.  Perhaps, after you have been starving in the wilderness, almost anything looks beautiful yet in this passage, his last words, it is comforting to know that he was still able to find the beauty in something, despite the horrifying circumstances that were the end of his life.  These words are also significant, obviously, because they are the last words in his journal; they give finality to the situation as a whole.  It is interesting, however, that his last words are not something more profound, a message to the rest of the world about changing the way we live our lives or what his mission was.  All that follows this entry is a tally of the days but I think, in a greater sense, that is a very accurate account of McCandless – he did all of this for himself, it was not for anyone else.  In essence, “beautiful blueberries” is a perfect ending for McCandless. 
 

 

 

 

“P1070797 on Flickr,” uploaded on April 16^th, 2006, by scherre.
  

“And at the perimeter of this boneyard lies one much larger skeleton: that of the moose he shot, and subsequently agonized over.” – Krakauer, p.77
 

Finally, a shot of a caribou’s head.  Ironically enough, the sheer fact that McCandless was convinced – and distraught! – over his killing a moose when it was, in fact, a caribou is, again, evident of his aforementioned naiveté.  Krakauer writes, “When I’d questioned Gordon Samel and Ken Thompson shortly after they’d discovered McCandless’s body, both men insisted – adamantly and unequivocally – that the big skeleton was the remains of caribou, and they derided the greenhorn’s ignorance in mistaking the animal he killed for a moose.” Thompson continues, “The kid didn’t know what the hell he was doing up here” (Krakauer, 177).  While there are some who simply do not understand the purpose behind McCandless’s mission, others understand the journey, the search to find oneself, if that is, in fact, what this journey was.  One problem I would agree that almost everyone has with this story, however, is how a man as smart as McCandless was, could be so ill-prepared.  How can someone purposefully enter the Alaskan wilderness without being equipped with a map, proper food supplies, proper hunting supplies, proper clothing; without the proper plan?  Mistaking a caribou for a moose (although I am sure that I would too!) is a mistake that he should not have made.  Eventually, enough mistakes are going to cost you your life, as was the case with McCandless.   
 

 

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”   Or so they say.  I think that a picture is worth so much more than just a thousand words, yet the words that a picture portrays vary from viewer to viewer; we all see things in a different way.  One person might see something I hadn’t even noticed, I might see beauty where someone else doesn’t, someone else might find the irony where there isn’t any.  It is all in how we perceive things.  With that in mind, the caption comes in handy – it gets the intended message across so that we all see things in the same light.  Words have a huge impact on the image.  In that respect the image also has an effect on the words.  Tying the two together can, at times, be tricky.  Depending on whether you first see the picture or the caption, the second part serves as a frame, it puts the first part into a box, makes the viewer focus.  If one reads the caption first, for example, he or she will look at the picture with something specific in mind.  Alternatively, viewing the image first allows one to take his or her own snapshot, taking away something personal.  Reading the caption then allows the viewer to narrow in to what he or she is “supposed” to be seeing and/or thinking.  Captions are the frame for each image.