Missing Canadian man found 10k km from home in the Amazon jungle

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11797657

by avenoir • 9 years ago

51 43 9 years ago

nzherald.co.nz

alacombe• 9 years ago

Another Christopher Mccandless, it would seem.

is it possible for someone to walk that much distance while being malnourished? the article said that he scraped berries and remnants of food in trash, but 4-5 years like that? the article also mentions that he walked most of it, only occasionally getting a ride as a stowaway. this guy must have had incredible health, walking barefoot, without major sickness (infection, virus, etc), no money, no food, hardly any shelter, in shorts. i imagine the fact that he was in and around warm climate areas helped, he would not have survived if he went north or east.

bigiain• 9 years ago

Over 5 years - its less then 6km a day average.

aisofteng2• 9 years ago

6 through untouched land is nothing like 6km on a paved road.

happy-go-lucky4• 9 years ago

the article said that he scraped berries and remnants of food in trash, but 4-5 years like that?

When it comes to real-world experiences, most details fail to get documented.

StClaire• 9 years ago

I wonder how this started. It said his goal was to visit a library in Argentina. Is that what he wanted to do when he left, or did he pick that up on the way?

I know I've gone out for a drive or a walk to clear my head and found myself 90 minutes from home. Maybe this guy took it to a whole new level

Waterluvian• 9 years ago

One day that whole new level is going out to the outer planets to have a think.

tempestn3• 9 years ago

I certainly don't know, but the implication seems to be that due to his schizophrenia, he became fixated on that destination, likely ascribing some importance to it that would not have otherwise been rational.

bruceb• 9 years ago

This is originally from the Daily Mail it seems? Who knows the level of fact then.

someone13• 9 years ago

Looks like the original article may be from here? http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anton-pilipa-found-1.3...

CBC date is: Feb 07, 2017 15:31 ET

Daily Mail: Feb 08, 2017 16:38 ET

aisofteng2• 9 years ago

This post should r updated to link to the CBC post. The DailyMail is unreliable to the point that it is banned from being used as a citation from Wikipedia: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/money/2017/02/09/me...

westmeal• 9 years ago

He forgot to return that book.

mynegation• 9 years ago

While doing that journey on foot is no small feat, the most impressive is the fact that (to the best of my understanding) he crossed Darien Gap[1] on foot.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap

happy-go-lucky4• 9 years ago

The World's Most Dangerous Journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nv5QWTZyDw

f_allwein• 9 years ago

Interesting - I did nit know that and always assumed it was straightforward to go from North to South America.

pmcollins• 9 years ago

Guy walks across two continents to go to the library only to realize once he gets there that he forgot his wallet.

happy-go-lucky4• 9 years ago

"I've never felt alone,' he said. "It's been a lot of thinking for years, sleeping in the open. It's very simple to live, we do not need many things."

I'm getting this positive feeling that nature must have cured him off schizophrenia.

lazyasciiart• 9 years ago

Really? What about that quote indicates an absence of schizophrenia to you?

developer26• 9 years ago

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

"If a person lives in a forest and no one is around to label them as a 'schizophrenic', can that person be claimed to have a disorder?"

When you're alone, you can't be compared against society's bullshit definition of "normal". You are just you. Imagine how freeing that is, to extract oneself from the judging glare and arbitrary definitions of your peers who think themselves better than you.

SwellJoe3• 9 years ago

One of the more important changes in psychology in recent years is that conditions are not labeled a "disorder" unless and until they adversely impact the ability of the person to function happily without harming others. In short, if you are happy with the way your mind works, and you aren't hurting anyone else, you may be Just Fine(tm), according to modern psychology.

A situation like this perhaps tests the bounds of that idea. Even if he says, "I feel fine about all of this", it may be necessary for loved ones to step in and say, "OK, but you're endangering your health."

I travel full-time, often in some pretty odd places, and I have several friends and passing acquaintances who aren't all that far off from this guy. I know folks who ride trains with nothing but a backpack, people who hitchhike cross-country on a regular basis, people who've ridden bikes through multiple countries, people who live/travel in a van or car, etc. I worry about their mental state in some cases, and many have addiction issues, but many choose to live lightly, and I don't know that it would be ethical to insist they do otherwise.

Schizophrenia is more common than most folks realize, and people can suffer in a wide variety of ways because of it. It may be worse to be trapped in an apartment or a mental hospital, or to be suicidal, or to become violent, because of the condition than to be roaming around South America, at least for some folks. It isn't always treatable (anti-psychotics sometimes help, anti-depressants sometimes help, Lithium sometimes helps if schizophrenia is paired with bipolar disorder; my father was schizophrenic and was, at times, prescribed all of those), so maybe being happy (or content) and not hurting anyone is as good an outcome as one can achieve.

So, yeah, he may have schizophrenia, and I hope he's able to get treatment that works effectively. It sounds like he's happy to be back with his family, and they're happy to have him back. That's an awesome outcome.

tn13• 9 years ago

I think I will be really heartbroken if I later learn this story to be fake or made up! Simply incredible.

Markoff• 9 years ago

how was he able to cross so many borders without any ID?

contingencies2• 9 years ago

About 10 years ago I knew another Canadian who crossed China-Laos-Thailand-Malaysia without a valid passport or visa (or pretty much any money whatsoever). This was after about 3-4 years in China with an expired visa. When you consider how short the Thai/Malay land border is in particular, if it's possible there, then it would appear that most borders are not very well controlled. This accords with my own experience visiting land borders in remote areas and speaking to local inhabitants (mostly China-Burma-Laos-Vietnam but also Algeria-Tunisia). Allegedly he turned himself in at the Canadian consulate and was flown home.

narutouzumaki• 9 years ago

I am curious, do you mean he by some means simply managed to get border control to let him pass through, or he crossed the border without being controlled? E.g. crossing through sparsely populated areas / nature?

ryanlol• 9 years ago

There aren't many borders in the world that can't be trivially crossed without ID. Especially on foot.

tempestn3• 9 years ago

Mental illnesses are as real as physical illnesses. While we have a long way to go in understanding and treating them (as we do with understanding of the brain and the body in general), most people suffering from mental illness can still benefit significantly from proper diagnosis and treatment. Writing off mental illness (or at least schizophrenia) as bullshit, as you appear to be doing, doesn't help anyone.

developer26• 9 years ago

> we have a long way to go in understanding and treating them

Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end? Are "we" and "them" the same collective, subjecting themselves to their own analysis? Or is the "we" the collective of those who are apparently not mentally ill, with "them" being the group being targeted for labelling? If the latter, what is your justification for assessing a group of people you do not belong to? Your own manmade "science", with no basis in factual laws of nature required?

What is mental illness, as defined by our society? It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those who self-label themselves as not being affected. For the most part, "being mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first.

Aside: I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them, while having no choice but to slave away at a job they despise, performing menial tasks that feed corporate greed while not providing a single meaningful contribution to their community... and for what purpose? To perpetuate the meaningless existence we have created for ourselves? Society did not have to work out this way, but somehow this is where we have ended up. It's depressing beyond belief, and it's no wonder so many people are fucked up.

SwellJoe3• 9 years ago

"Aside: I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals ..."

The great thing about facts is that they're true whether you believe them or not. Schizophrenia has been documented (not by that name but by description) more than 2,000 years ago. You can't blame modern capitalism or the industrial revolution or modern cities or whatever for schizophrenia.

E63004• 9 years ago

Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end?

Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses.

It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those who self-label themselves as not being affected. For the most part, "being mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first.

No. Not all things are subject to relativism. If you believe you're indestructible and do something that gets you hurt or killed, then your cognitive functions have objectively malfunctioned. It doesn't matter if you realize it or not.

I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them

What about, say, some European monarchs who went crazy due to generations of inbreeding?

dang• 9 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13627356 and marked it off-topic.

LordWinstanley• 9 years ago

>police reached out on Twitter

Sigh! four-tops-itis reaches New Zealand

aMayn• 9 years ago

Perhaps he was looking for an entryway to "The Library of Babel" to find the "The Man of the Book".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

My first thought that his obession was somehow conencted to Borges. Borges being the former director of the National Public Library of Argentina.

This mans story has Borgesque qualities to it in itself.

Missing Canadian man found 10k km from home in the Amazon jungle

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