"Into The Wild"

[Rob A.]

And, as well, I'd be interested in what a typical rural Finn might think of this event...

That sounds like a comment from a "city slicker" who is lost because all previous known markers of direction are gone. On the other hand, a seasoned "hick" can read a forest immediatly and will find their way. No problem and like you mentioned, landmarks etc. are the same as street signs. In Finland, the first group of people that come into mind are hunters, berry pickers and hikers, etc. Also the idea of Private Property and No Trespassing doesn't apply here and possibly then that means there is more outdoor activity in the wilderness here. Just to walk blindly into a forest isn't very clever.

Hopefully that's a "kindly" dig.... But, yes...I agree...and that was my point... Although the "event" I was referring to was the McCandless event...

And, I'm actually pretty good in the bush... though I've lived in an urban environment for a long time now... I find that there are usually some "transitional issues" if I do go into a real wilderness... I sort of have to "recalibrate"... In rough terrain getting lost should be almost "impossible"...there are so many clues around you..., but in the "dead flat" terrain around Dawson Creek and Fort St. John...and I know you know where these places are... you want to think a bit before you go in....but there are still clues...moss, the sun, of course, growth direction of plants ...another time I got lost up in the Mackenzie delta...in a small boat in a side channel....but it all turned out OK... I climbed up a tall pine tree and could then see the main channel off in the distance...

[Mattlill2000]

Mackenzie delta...in a small boat in a side channel....but it all turned out OK... I climbed up a tall pine tree and could then see the main channel off in the distance...

That must of been an incredible experience to be on the Mackenzie River. I'm impressed! I think I'll wait until the movie is in DVD and rent it and then the other movie watchers will get tired of my rants on how stupid someone can be.
While Finland has lots and lots of wilderness, it doesn't compare to the awesome vastness of Canada and Alaska in this case.

[Rob A.]

Mackenzie delta...in a small boat in a side channel....but it all turned out OK... I climbed up a tall pine tree and could then see the main channel off in the distance...

That must of been an incredible experience to be on the Mackenzie River. I'm impressed! I think I'll wait until the movie is in DVD and rent it and then the other movie watchers will get tired of my rants on how stupid someone can be.
While Finland has lots and lots of wilderness, it doesn't compare to the awesome vastness of Canada and Alaska in this case.

It was one of my life's "highlights" alright... I spent two months up there ...I was I think about 20 or 22 or some such age...

Arrived in Inuvik just a couple of days before Juhannes...not that they called it that up there... lots of adventures.... First saw the midnight sun in Aklavik... Several days in the Babbage River valley ....several weeks in the Mackenzie delta, Got as far south as Arctic Red River and Fort MacPherson... Then north for a couple of weeks at Atkinson Point on the Arctic Ocean (an old Dew Line station), then a camping trip on the tundra with a hike back from the open tundra into the forest.... And had a wet, rather intense snowstorm in the last week of August.... Lots of little side adventures along the way... Quite the experience...

I also spent one memorable day flying (in an old de Havilland Otter) over the very southern part of the Alaska panhandle...(to get from Prince Rupert to the mouth of the Stikine River...on the Canadian side of the border)....the natural beauty was absolutely stunning...

For those who like this kind of stuff I wouldn't hesitate to go for it..the locals are very hospitable and obliging...I assume it's still the same...I was watching a recent TV program (actually National Georgraphic)...among other things they were trying to recover an old airplane from a lake in Manitoba and I could see from the attitudes of the people involved nothing much has changed in the "back country".... But it is "mañana country" if you know what I mean...you need lots of patience...

[Rob A.]

Nice...depending on the year...maybe it's earlier these days, but the ice should be out of the delta by early June....mosquitos arrive the next day... ..and I guess she'll be spending some time in the neat, little town of Inuvik...

And yes, the BCFS...I worked for them one summer during university days...an interesting summer spent in the Rockies... But I've been all around the Terrace area...so when I say, Kitsumkalum, Meziadin, Stewart, Hyder (in Alaska), Aiyansh, Kitwanga and Cranberry Junction you know exactly what I'm talking about...

[Ravvy]

Hi there Ravvy!

Guess what? The film is released in Finland on 4th April!!!!!!!! And guess what what?? I ordered a DVD copy from Amazon only YESTERDAY

There was an article in this morning's metro about Penn's film. Not sure I understand why it took so long to get here (unless it is dubbed, doubt it). I hope Penn makes the trip for the Première (it might say something in the article but I read too slowly and had to get off the train and haven't had time to read the rest). So, I will hide my DVD and watch it on the big screen first. I have been telling all my students I will lend them the DVD (I have done reading comprehensions on extracts from the book) so now they can go and watch it at the cinema instead

Anyway... off to see Juno now.
P

April 4th! Perkele!!
Very cool that you are using the book in class; I'm impressed.
I did not know it was out in DVD yet, but now I'll order it one of these days.
And so what did you think of Juno?

[Ravvy]

It depends "how" you watch the film. If you go in expecting a "Bushcraft Survival" documentary then yes, I guess you will be disappointed. But if the movie is anything like the book, then it is more about who McCandless was, his background, his passions and his motivation. It is about vagabonds and hobos and why people make the choices they do. In a lesson today we read the first chapter of the book. Gallien, picks up Alex who is hitchhiking out of Fairbanks. They talk about McCandless's rifle, a .22. Gallien says that a .22 is no good for hunting game. One of my students asked me if I had read all the book and why would a youngster go out into the wilderness with no food and just a .22. Then another student said, well why would a 12th grader walk into a school with a .22 and shoot everything that moves...? Of course, there is no answer and no one knows but Krakauer and Sean Penn both have their own ideas about it. But it's not about bushcraft.

Agree, agree, agree.
For me, the driving force of this story is the profound depth of betrayal he felt upon learning of his father's pattern of behavior (& mother's acceptance of it), and the extremes he felt he had to go to determine for himself what he could depend on; i.e., where exactly are the baseline truths in one's life. He got in way over his head in trying to find for himself a solid base upon which to stand. One could infer from his Alaska notes that he found some important truths about himself and was ready to rejoin the outside world, but could not get back out of the bush.

[Rosamunda]

Very cool that you are using the book in class; I'm impressed.

Somebody asked me about muskeg. It's in chapter one (McCandless is looking out over the muskeg from Gallien's truck).

I found a brief description in wikionary which said something about marshy woodland. Can someone come up with a better definition? Or a pic? Is muskeg pine forest or deciduous? Is muskeg anything like the marshy Finnish peat/bog forests?

By the way, enjoyed Juno. Thought it was vaguely irresponsible for not mentioning HIV etc but it was lots of fun and the song at the end is just terrific.

[Hank W.]

KVG Muskeg Looks a bit likeaapasuo, though räme, letto and palsasuo give similar hits. How many darn words there are in Finnish for a peatbog?

Well, at least I learned a new word. Now I know whats behind the cottage

[Rob A.]

Well...thanks...always happy to learn some new Finnish words??...

Anyway, here's a wikipedia link ...I read the whole thing and it accurately describes the kind of muskeg you start finding in British Columbia at the northern end of Vancouver Is and somewhere south of Prince Geroge in the interior and then all the way north into the Yukon and Alaska....Looks to me to have been written by someone in either BC or Alaska...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskeg

Muskeg is an Algonguin word meaning "grassy bog"...and that's pretty accurate...at first glance it looks like a meadow, but you find out differently pretty quick...often there is a pond of varying size in the middle. The classic give-away in BC, Yukon and Alaska is a fringe of stunted-looking Black Spruce...in coastal areas I think this tree fringe consistently shifts to stunted Lodgepole Pines....

[Hank W.]

Well, thats what in Finnish you just call a "suo"...


a lake that starts getting grown in... small trees/brush with birch, fir or pine growing... and varieties.. then to add to the mix some bogs have been "meadowed" or "forested" at some time by drying them up, and then when they went all hippie and gave up farming they have "bogged up" and the neighboring forest then gets "bogified" as well, so you can have huge rotten trees...

[Ravvy]

Somebody asked me about muskeg. It's in chapter one (McCandless is looking out over the muskeg from Gallien's truck).

I found a brief description in wikionary which said something about marshy woodland. Can someone come up with a better definition? Or a pic? Is muskeg pine forest or deciduous? Is muskeg anything like the marshy Finnish peat/bog forests?

I'll make a somewhat subjective attempt at how we used the word in Northern Minnesota.

Often "muskeg" was used to describe the type of footing in that kind of swamp where there is a thick, squishy layer of moss & lichen & little cranberry-type plants that all kinda intertwine with each other and you feel like you are walking on a waterbed. For example, someone might say, "Jeez, even though I had my high boots on, I went right down through the muskeg into water & got my feet wet!" So a "field" of this stuff was called a "muskeg swamp", a.k.a. "swamp", "bog", or "peat bog". To put a finer point on it, our typical/ common useage had "bog" as the most wet; usually the top layer would not hold body weight & one would just punch down through into water. "Muskeg" would be the type that had lots of plants/moss/etc. growing in it and was very soft but holds body weight (i.e. the deer trails through it would have "sides" on them), and "peat" would be the most firm; still swampy, but a more firm layer than "muskeg". (I won't even get into "muck" at this point )

Muskeg swamps would grow trees, but typically not big, tall stuff. More like thickets of spruce or tamarack with individual stick trees in the open spaces between thickets. What we called bogs typically would not grow a lot of trees in thickets, i.e. more open. At the other end of the "firmness spectrum", something described as "peat" was more dense and could grow a lot of trees in visually blinding thickets or walls. All of these swamps were relatively acidic environments, so the most common plants were those that could tolerate acid soil (like spruces, balsams, tamaracks, and the like, & sometimes birches & willows, also).

[Hank W.]

OK, so the "muskeg" is the area where you can jump up and down and make "waves" without dropping in? (A few rubber boots been sacrificed in the tests when the edge came forth or there was an "eye").

[Rob A.]

Hmmm...all you ever wanted to know about bogs, but were afraid to ask...

Here's an elaborate CDN government website on "Canada's Wetlands"...lots of photos and lots of detailed descriptions...

http://wetlands.cfl.scf.rncan.gc.ca/cla ... g3-eng.asp

...and they are actually using the term "palsa bog" to describe one type:

Mounds of perennially frozen peat and mineral soil, up to 5 m high, with a maximum diameter of 100 m. The surface is convex in shape, highly uneven and at least 1 m higher than its edge or surrounding fen.

...so "palsa" looks like another Finnish contribution to the English language...( I set the link to go direct to "palsa bog")...


...and it think the generic term for "muskeg" used by scientists must be "fen"...

In the description the tree species most commonly associated with bogs in Canada and, by extension, I would include Alaska... is the Picea mariana...that's the black spruce...in the various photos it's the spruce with the "bulby" looking top...

[Rosamunda]

Thanks thanks thanks. Lots of links to show my students. I have a group of 3 engineers in Otaniemi who are really interested in this kind of stuff.

For us Brits a fen is, I might be wrong, a grassy marshland but NOT so acidic and you certainly wouldn't find peat bogs and stunted pine trees. Peat bogs remind me of Kinder Scout in Derbyshire where I have vague memories of suffering long hikes in the cold and wet when I was at school (compulsory school camp- BTW kangaroos are now living wild and breeding on Kinder Scout having escaped from various Wildlife Parks). But those peat bogs were just peat, no trees, nothing. The locals occasionally dig up the perfectly conserved remains of WWII bomber pilots etc (I'm making this up but it's more or less true) from planes that crashed into the Pennines during the war. And I think we call those places Moorland rather than Fens.

Do those muskeg places stink?

[Hank W.]

...so "palsa" looks like another Finnish contribution to the English language...

Well, North Sami, but via Finnish....