I don't think he was naive. Like someone posted above, he knew the danger and talked about it all the time on the tapes. I think he got off on it. He was obviously a whacko, and spending all that time out there alone made him even crazier.
The part I liked best were the foxes. I thought it was amazing how they seemed to be as tame as dogs and followed him around like dogs.
And, finally, although he was a nuttcase with a deathwish, who here on this board hasn't dreamed about being able to spend a months on end in the wilderness? For most of us those sorts of fantasies involve buckskins and rifles in sort of a James Fenimore Cooper thing, but the urge is the same. In some ways I respect him. Crazier that an outhouse rat, but he said to heck with it, dropped everything and did something that many of us toiling back here in the real world dream of doing (minus the maneating bears, of course).
