Are you suggesting that the lesson from his death is 'take the wilderness seriously' and simultaneously arguing that a discovery about whether or not a particular potentially-edible plant is poisonous is not worth knowing?

Well for those that do take the wilderness seriously, as something of a tautology, yes it matters.

The last sentence of the article:

"And because many people—both admirers of McCandless and his detractors—regard “Into the Wild” as a cautionary tale, it’s important to know as much as possible about how McCandless actually may have died."

Well, I think it's worth finding out just for the sake of knowing.

But as a cautionary tale, yeah it still matters. Say you meet some guy planning on taking this same "adventure", you show him Into the Wild, he says "no problem, I've been hunting and trapping for 10 years, no way I'll starve".

People who just think "It's a bad idea in general, I don't need to know exactly how he died" were probably not in any danger of making the same mistake. If you want to convince people on the fence, you need specifics.

Whether he died because he either ate a poisonous plant or starved, the issue is the same: lack of proper preparation for a food supply.

Many people view foraging for food in the wilderness to be a perfectly adequate plan for having a food supply. If the theory is correct, he didn't starve to death because of poor planning, he starved to death because he ate something poisonous, which then prevented him from foraging for food.

You seem to be implying that foraging isn't an OK way to feed oneself in the wilderness.

You're right. But nobody ever died because they avoided the poisonous berries.

The story of how he died is a good cautionary tale, and the story of how the exact cause was discovered is also interesting.

It's kind of how people are scared of dying in plane crashes but not in car crashes - the illusion of control. One easily imagines doing something to avoid a car death but not a plane one.

I think the same applies here: Death by starvation feels easier to avoid to a layman wilderness expert: forage more, hunt effectively, conserve supplies better, etc.

But death via an obscure chemical even while in possession of a book on edible seeds...that's scary and much more likely to give one reservations about their confidence.

FTA: "The death of Chris McCandless should serve as a caveat to other foragers: Even when some parts of a plant are known to be edible, other parts of the same species may contain dangerous concentrations of toxic compounds. Additionally, there may be seasonal, as well as ecotypic, variations in the concentrations of L-canavanine between various communities of H. alpinum."

I suppose it doesn't matter if you're never going to encounter the poisonous seeds in your life, but in general it is valuable to know what will kill you and what will not.

Given the options of knowing the truth and not knowing the truth, I personally will always choose knowing.

People always omit the fact that he had survived in the same location for more than 100 days and had actually decided to leave but was prevented from doing so by a flooding river. Makes him seem a little less stupid.

>Makes him seem a little less stupid.

If he would have brought a map or done a little more preparation he could have taken the hand operated tram 8/10ths of a mile away. He's stupid.

Here is a quote from the book to reiterate my point ('Roman' is Roman Dial, of which more can be found out here: https://www.travelalaska.com/Experience%20Alaska/Alaska%20Lo...):

  I bring up McCandless's hubris and the dumb mistakes he made-the
  two or three readily avoidable blunders that ended up costing him 
  his life. "Sure, he screwed up," Roman answers, "but I admire what
  he was trying to do. Living completely off the land like that, month
  after month, is incredibly difficult. I've never done it. And I'd bet
  you that very few, if any, of the people who call McCandless
  incompetent have ever done it either, not for more than a week or
  two. Living in the interior bush for an extended period, subsisting
  on nothing except what you hunt and gather-most people have no idea
  how hard that actually is. And McCandless almost pulled it off.

  "I guess I just can't help identifying with the guy," Roman allows
  as he pokes the coals with a stick. "I hate to admit it, but not so
  many years ago it could easily have been me in the same kind of
  predicament. When I first started coming to Alaska, I think I was
  probably a lot like McCandless: just as green, just as eager. And I'm
  sure there are plenty of other Alaskans who had a lot in common with
  McCandless when they first got here, too, including many of his
  critics. Which is maybe why they're so hard on him. Maybe McCandless
  reminds them a little too much of their former selves."