Christopher Johnson McCandless, also known by his self-made nickname "Alexander ", was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up. McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild, a nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer that was later made into a full-length feature film.
The Dall sheep, Dall's sheep or thinhorn sheep is a wild sheep native to northwestern North America. The species contains two subspecies: Ovis dalli dalli and Ovis dalli stonei. Dall sheep live in dry alpine areas, and browse grasses and sedges. Like other Ovis species, the rams engage in dominance contests with their horns.
Into the Wild is a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It is an expansion of a 9,000-word article by Krakauer on Chris McCandless titled "Death of an Innocent", which appeared in the January 1993 issue of Outside. The book was adapted to a film of the same name in 2007, directed by Sean Penn with Emile Hirsch starring as McCandless. Into the Wild is an international bestseller which has been printed in 30 languages and 173 editions and formats. The book is widely used as high school and college reading curriculum. Into the Wild has been lauded by many reviewers, and in 2019 was listed by Slate as one of the 50 best nonfiction works of the past quarter-century, but the book has also been described by Alaskan reporter Craig Medred as "something invented" by its author.
Spiraea douglasii is a species of flowering plant in the rose family native to western North America. Common names include hardhack,hardhack steeplebush, Douglas' spirea, douglasspirea, steeplebush, and rose spirea.
Eryngium alpinum, the alpine sea holly, alpine eryngo or queen of the Alps, is a herbaceous perennial plant in the family Apiaceae.
Astragalus alpinus is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name alpine milkvetch. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring throughout the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
Melilotus albus, known as honey clover, white melilot (UK), Bokhara clover (Australia), white sweetclover (USA), and sweet clover, is a nitrogen-fixing legume in the family Fabaceae. Melilotus albus is considered a valuable honey plant and source of nectar and is often grown for forage. Its characteristic sweet odor, intensified by drying, is derived from coumarin.
Hedysarum (sweetvetch) is a genus of the botanical family Fabaceae, consisting of about 200 species of annual or perennial herbs in Asia, Europe, North Africa, and North America.
Trifolium wormskioldii is a species of clover. Its common names include cows clover, coast clover, sand clover, seaside clover, springbank clover, and Wormskjold's clover.
The wildlife of Alaska is both diverse and abundant. The Alaskan Peninsula provides an important habitat for fish, mammals, reptiles, and birds. At the top of the food chain are the bears. Alaska contains about 70% of the total North American brown bear population and the majority of the grizzly bears. as well as black bears and Kodiak bears. In winter, polar bears can be found in the Kuskokwim Delta, St. Matthew Island, and at the southernmost portion of St. Lawrence Island. There are also moose and caribou, bison, wolves and wolverines, foxes, otters and beavers. Fish species are extensive, including: salmon, graylings, char, rainbow and lake trout, northern pike, halibut, pollock, and burbot. The bird population consists of hundreds of species, including: bald eagles, owls, falcons, ravens, ducks, geese, swans, and the passerines. Sea lions, seals, sea otters, and migratory whales are often found close to shore and in offshore waters. The Alaskan waters are home to two species of turtles, the leatherback sea turtle and the green sea turtle. Alaska has two species of frogs, the Columbia spotted frog and wood frog, plus two introduced species, the Pacific tree frog and the red-legged frog. The only species of toad in Alaska is the western toad. There are over 3,000 recorded species of marine macroinvertebrates inhabiting the marine waters, the most common being the various species of shrimp, crab, lobster, and sponge.
Eriogonum alpinum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Trinity buckwheat.
The Ecology of the North Cascades is heavily influenced by the high elevation and rain shadow effects of the mountain range. The North Cascades is a section of the Cascade Range from the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River in Washington, United States, to the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in British Columbia, Canada, where the range is officially called the Cascade Mountains but is usually referred to as the Canadian Cascades. The North Cascades Ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion in the Commission for Environmental Cooperation's classification system.
Cyclamen parviflorum, the small-flowered cyclamen is a perennial growing from a tuber, native to high elevations in the Pontic Mountains of northern Turkey. It is the smallest cyclamen species and the only one native to alpine tundra.
Vaccinium membranaceum is a species within the group of Vaccinium commonly referred to as huckleberry. This particular species is known by the common names thinleaf huckleberry, tall huckleberry, big huckleberry, mountain huckleberry, square-twig blueberry, and (ambiguously) as "black huckleberry".
The Eskimo potato is a type of edible plant that grows in the northern areas of Canada and Alaska. The plant's scientific name is variously attributed as either Claytonia tuberosa or Hedysarum alpinum. Both species have a range in the northern area of North America, have edible roots, and have been documented to have been used as a food source by Inuit peoples. Due to its nutritional qualities, the eskimo potato is one of many edible foods listed in survival guides, such as the US Army's field manual Survival, and is used in modern times to subsist in nature.
Arctostaphylos rubra is a species of flowering plant in the heath family and the genus Arctostaphylos, the manzanitas and bearberries. Common names include red fruit bearberry, alpine bearberry, arctic bearberry, red manzanita, and ravenberry. It is native to Eurasia and northern North America from Alaska through most of Canada to Greenland. There is also one population in the contiguous United States, located in the Absaroka Mountains of Wyoming.
Salix arbusculoides is a species of flowering plant in the willow family known by the common name little tree willow. It is native to northern North America, where its distribution extends across Alaska and most of Canada.
Hedysarum boreale is a species of flowering plant in the Fabaceae, or legume family, and is known by the common names Utah sweetvetch, boreal sweet-vetch, northern sweetvetch, and plains sweet-broom. It is native to North America, where it is widespread in northern and western regions of Canada and the United States. The ssp. mackenzii can even be found in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Trifolium alpinum is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name alpine clover. It is native to the Alps.
The Upper Kuskokwim people or Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans, Upper Kuskokwim Athabascans, and historically Kolchan, Goltsan, Tundra Kolosh, and McGrath Ingalik are an Alaskan Athabaskan people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. First delineation of this ethnolinguistic group was described by anthropologist Edward Howard Hosley in 1968, as Kolchan. According to Hosley, "Nevertheless, as a group possessing a history and a culture differing from those of its neighbours, the Kolchan deserve to be recognized as an independent group of Alaskan Athapaskans." They are the original inhabitants of the Upper Kuskokwim River villages of Nikolai, Telida, and McGrath, Alaska. About 25 of a total of 100 Upper Kuskokwim people still speak the language. They speak a distinct Athabaskan language more closely related to Lower Tanana language than to Deg Xinag language, spoken on the middle Kuskokwim. The term used by the Kolchan themselves is Dina'ena, but this is too similar to the adjacent Tanana and Tanaina for introduction into the literature. Nowadays, the term used by the Kolchan themselves is Dichinanek' Hwt'ana. Their neighbors also knew them by this name. In Tanaina they were Kenaniq' ht'an while the Koyukon people to the north referred to them as Dikinanek Hut'ana. The Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan culture is an hunter-gatherer culture and have a matrilineal system. They were semi-nomadic and living in semi-permanent settlements.
