What a title, right? I picked up this book mostly because of it, just vaguely aware what the book is actually about, so intrigued by what it meant to be wilderness. What was the author trying to say? And yeah - the premise is a girl going on an adventure a la Into the Wild's Chris McCandless - "a female quest for authenticity" - stepping out into the world and finding herself. Or something else.

 "The young always leave. At least the male young of the species always does. My leaving would have been a casting out, an initiation ritual, had I been a boy. Women who leave always abandon. Imagine the pinnacle form of this, the mother who leaves her children to her husband. Unnatural! Monstrous! And the man who does it? My bet is he ends up smug with a younger wife paying minimal child support."

A lot of the book is ruminating. Erin, our daring protagonist, spends an inordinate amount of time mulling over the aspect of conquering wilderness and the maleness of the whole deal. She rightfully points out that wilderness, nature - they both have an undertone of femininity, they're both a she that a man is pitted against, sent to conquer. A lot of tv shows about Mountain Men insinuate that there is something important to access in nature, something valuable to learn, but it can only be accessed by men, with a rare woman tagging along as his companion. Because women are too fragile to go it alone.

The issue of feminism is also a big theme of the novel, which is what made me continue reading through some more questionable paragraphs (read: boring). She mentions being a survivor of sexual abuse, when at 14 she worked at a restaurant where the owner would harass all the girls, even going s far as putting his hand in her panties. But they were all silent, because that's how it was when you're a woman, that's your burden to bear and why would you complain and inconvenience someone with it... Also, she encounters so much sexism along the way, with some really creepy and garbage men, which enraged me. Women really can't go anywhere without being targets for sexual assault, huh?

Erin goes on to point out how this new hyper-masculinity is simply a reaction to modern feminism. Women are liberating themselves from the shackles of patriarchy and men are fighting to put them back. Because they're manly men. When they do a woman a favor they expect her to return it sexually, otherwise she is an "ungrateful bitch". Even men you think of as friends, avuncular types can manage to be creepy and presumptuous. 

We also learn a lot of interesting facts and the book makes you think about certain things that may have never crossed your mind, or might not have lingered if they ever occurred to you. She mentions NASA's space program that had female astronauts better prepared to take the flight to the mon - but they couldn't very well have women be the first people in space. How the issue of carling about the climate change, environmentalism is considered to be feminine because it's equated with hysterical, oversensitive women's maternal instinct waking up when they see stranded animals; they're less important issues, the whole thing is melodramatic. 

As she travels, Erin meets Indigenous peoples of both Greenland and Canada, and it strikes her how different their lives are. She is a woman, yes, and that carries danger, but she is white where they're not and this does enable her to leave, to travel. Naaja, a girl from Greenland and Sam, a boy from Canada, cannot leave because they're bound by their culture. Their way of life is disappearing and they're barely holding on. Staying behind is the only option they have if they want their culture preserved, and even that might not be enough. 

They're the people who live in harmony with nature, they take what they need and they give back. But our greedy capitalist world is encroaching on everything, digging on their sacred sites, ruining their habitats, preventing them from living in accord with their customs. Climate change affects them as well, dumping our nuclear waste - our most enduring time capsule - it all goes back to them.

When she finally gets to a cabin in Alaskan wilderness, somewhere under Mt. Denali, Erin begins to finally figure some things out. Caught in a week-long downpour, she is stuck inside, all alone with her thoughts she has nothing for company save a few books. During her time in Denali, she goes exploring, she follows a reindeer, she climbs a peak - if something was easy it would not be a challenge and if it is not a challenge then it is not meaningful.

Erin realizes that the documentary she was going to make about her excursion doesn't matter because she doesn't need the proof. It would be to prove to others that she could do it, but she proved it to herself She did what the Mountain Men did, but does not want to emulate them - to make a shrine of herself, to stake claim - because that was the wrong way. The self-willed man stakes claim to his freedom, not caring about anyone else's and she doesn't want to encroach on nature. It's not hers to claim but it would always be there and she can always come back should she choose to. What matters is that she knows she could do it.

The message of the novel really touched me, and I would be lying if I denied having dreams of adventuring on my own as well. I just never had the guts to set out, and probably never will. But women can commune with the nature, they can explore but they don't have to stake claim to it, to stick flags in the ground and write their names on the walls. The quiet exploration seems more meaningful because of its intimacy and authenticity. It's not done to make you famous, but to make you yourself.