Anchorage Daily News

HAINES -- There's no snow on the ground in town yet, but I'm ready for it. There's firewood in the shed and meat in the freezer. I don't live in the wilderness, but I'm surrounded by enough of it that I like to keep my place in order.

I helped my husband get a mountain goat on a cliffy ridge above the Chilkat River. The gully where it fell after being shot was so steep that we couldn't move it, so we skinned and boned it right there. Crampons kept my heels on the sedge-covered slope. The alarming angle made my position more like leaning than sitting. I boned the warm meat on my lap. There was blood all over my pants. It was not a Thoreau moment.

My body is little sore from the effort. My heart is too, as I have been helping out a friend dying of cancer. She is 57 and talks about what she wants on her memorial plaque. It can be up to three lines, 10 characters each. When I leave her, I take long walks.

I was alone in a foggy drizzle on the trail up to the microwave tower when I heard what sounded like Jimi Hendrix. The music got louder the higher I went, until I came into the tower clearing and startled the boom box's owners, a couple of coverall-clad guys repairing a wooden helicopter pad.

They were from out of town and had been stuck up there for two days; with the fog, their pilot couldn't see to land. They were sleeping in the shed. I said they could get a hot breakfast at the Bamboo Room Restaurant in about an hour's hike. But they were fine and enjoying the adventure.

A few nights later, I was on my back porch listening to the wind and the waves on the inlet and looking up at the black sky splattered with stars.

I had just read another newspaper story, and the e-mail comments on it, about "Into the Wild," the new movie based on Jon Krakauer's book about Chris McCandless wasting away and dying in that bus out in the bushes, and I needed fresh air.

I saw a shooting star and made a wish that my children would always be safe. I waited for another star to zip like a silent bottle rocket and wished that my sick friend would get well, or as well as a dying person can be.

Like every Alaskan I know -- and I bet every one you do -- I think McCandless was foolishly unprepared. It bothers me that my truly brave friend will get a small plaque and he got a book and now a movie that apparently treats him like a hero. (We don't have a theater here, so I'll have to wait for the DVD.)

He brought 10 pounds of rice to live on -- for months. He also had a .22. A typical Klondike gold seeker brought 200 pounds of rice and a bigger gun.

Around here, grade-schoolers know that the Mounties wouldn't let anyone into the country who didn't have a lot more than that. A ton of it, including 400 pounds of flour, dried fruit, tools, sleds, cookware and a cabin-size wall tent with a wood stove. Some hauled lumber to build boats.

I understand everyone can't be quite that prepared. I also have five children, so I know that you can't always persuade kids to take care of themselves, and I know from reading the book that the boy was troubled.

And that may be what really bothers me most about all the "Into the Wild" chatter: that Chris McCandless was a real lost soul. There is a plaque in that bus put there by his family that memorializes him as a beloved son. Imagine yourself in that scene.

I've read that his mother left something else, a suitcase of survival gear, so this might not happen again. It had a first-aid kit, map, tuna fish and blankets.

Every time I go on a hike, I carry a pocket emergency kit. It has a space blanket, waterproof matches, a candle, compass, whistle, knife and a couple of power bars. I took it goat hunting this week.

If I had fallen, someone might write my story, and they might say that I was up there searching for the power of the sacred huntress within, or something nutty, when all I was doing was hunting with my husband and made a fatal misstep.

The other day, my friend, who really is dying, quoted Woody Allen, joking that she doesn't want to live in my memory; she'd prefer her own apartment.

I bet Chris McCandless' mother wishes he had stayed closer to home or had at least been prepared for a long camping trip. I bet she wishes it more than anything in the world.

I waited for one more shooting star and wished for something a lot more possible than that right now, but no less miraculous. I wished for another ordinary day. One just like today.

Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com.

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