> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business?

You are in the minority, and it is absolutely someone else's business. At least it's their job to ensure that you're safe.

It doesn't even have to be for months at a time, just a simple wrong way turn in a national park on their way someplace else:

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

(Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567)

While that's a long story (and well worth reading), it illustrates how even the simplest things going wrong could lead to an entire family dying, within walking distance of paved roads, certainly less remote than Alaska. There were multiple SAR teams/missions that put their own lives at risk, even when it wasn't their job, that took responsibility to find out what happened.

Anyone who wants to "go out into the wilderness" has to remember that, it isn't just their own life at stake.