My Alaskan Oddysey
... romantic had died in me. I had become a part of this rationalist society. Now, I wanted to have fun in life. I wanted to, for sometime, isolate myself from this meaningless society. It was necessary for me to prove that the inner romantic, although very weak, was still in me. I needed to be more than a mediocre college graduate. Afer doing some research and not being satisfied with the typical U.S. continental landscape, I tried my luck in Alaska. My simple challenge was to survive an entire winter in Alaska with minimum resources. Surviving in the wild is not so easy especially with limited resources. This journey perfectly suited my desired adventure and self-made challenge. I arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska four days before Christmas. I set up my camp south of Yukon River and about thirty feet above some deserted village. “ My reasoning for this journey, if one can call it that, was also inflamed by the scattershot passions of youth.” Anyhow, I now walked in Alaska bush and planned to spend the winter there. I now breathed the cold Alaskan air. I had many, many difficulties just on the first month. Trouble was everywhere. Heavy cold winds crushed my body, but not my spirit. Secondly, the weather did not allow me to hunt all through the last week of January. I had to survive on about twenty pounds of rice. Having lost my machetes and knives in early March put hunting to an absolute end. I had finished my shotgun shells, rice, and oatmeal. I had nothing to eat. I had become very weak now and I still had ten days to go. Four days later, my empty stomach forced me out o...