lancastria.net

Following on from earlier posts about Chris, here’s more pics and info.

Other posts can be found here :

http://lancastria.net/blog/?p=190 (Photographs)

http://lancastria.net/blog/?p=3 (Into the wild)

http://lancastria.net/blog/?p=1341 (Photographs)

HEALY, Alaska — While some view it as a spiritual journey of adventure, others say it was a clumsy stunt that cost a young man his life. The story of Chris McCandless is a tragic tale, one that inspires those who seek a wild Alaskan odyssey while coming at the chagrin of many of those who live one.

Now with McCandless’ story becoming a major motion picture, the 15-year-old tale is finding new life and may likely motivate others to walk into the wild.

The season’s first snow has come to the Stampede Trail and ice is beginning its encroachment onto the Savage River. The Savage is one of two river crossing on the Stampede, a seldom-used trail that winds its way through the foothills north of Denali National Park and Preserve. It’s the path that led 24-year-old McCandless into the wild 15 years ago.

McCandless’ story is told in the new motion picture “Into the Wild” directed by Sean Penn. McCandless was chronicled in a series of Outside Magazine articles by Jon Krakauer that later became a best-selling book.

The young wanderer hitchhiked to Alaska in search of a true wilderness experience, looking to test his limits and live off the land.

McCandless ended up dying of starvation in an old bus 27 miles out on the Stampede Trail.

While the book and movie portray McCandless as an idealistic adventurer, elevating his folk hero status, many Alaskans view his story more critically.

Dermot Cole, a staff writer for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, said McCandless’ poor planning was his downfall.

“By failing to prepare, he made a mistake that cost him his life. That’s not really emphasized either in the book or in the movie,” Cole said.

The Stampede Trail departs the Parks Highway just north of Healy. About four miles out is the home of hunting guide Coke Wallace. He’s been out to the old bus plenty of times.

The stampede trail (Click for full picture)

“Hallowed ground, man, a guy died there. It’s pretty amazing to see how people react. Brent was with me when we took Sean Penn and his group out there for the first time,” Wallace said.

Hunting guide Brent Keith also offers guided trips to the bus. They are men who know the real meaning of survival in the wilds of Alaska, but also temper their criticism of McCandless and his odyssey.

“Yeah, I think it was a little bit harsh. I mean, we all do stupid stuff and if we’re lucky we learn from it and we don’t do it again — and in his case he made some mistakes and he didn’t learn from them and it cost him his life,” Keith said.

Newspaper article about Chris (Click for full image)

A Channel 2 News team set out by all-terrain vehicle down the Stampede Trail, with Wallace helping retracing the journey McCandless took.

“This isn’t Disneyland out here. It’s reach-out-and-bite-you in the boo-boo real quick,” Wallace said.

Crossing the Teklanika River is the most hazardous leg of the journey to the old Fairbanks municipal bus. The water is low now, as it was when McCandless crossed in the early spring of 1992. But Wallace said in the summer months it can become a ragging torrent.

“These rivers can change hourly. What’s calf-deep in the morning you can come back in the afternoon planning to cross it, and if it’s been melting or raining up in the high country it can be waste deep or deeper. It can be totally different,” Wallace said.

Aerial view of the magic bus in Denali national park Alaska

After an easy crossing, the Channel 2 News crew motored on for roughly five hours, not passing another soul. And then, in a clearing along the trail, the old International Harvester bus came into view.

Not a lot has changed in the 15 years since McCandless was at the bus and he took his most famous self-portrait.

Three days into McCandless’ walk into the wild, he wrote in his diary, “Magic Bus Day.” That’s the day he reached the old Fairbanks City Transit System bus 27 miles down the Stampede Trail. The bus still looks the same today, but instead of a shelter, it is now a shrine.

Inside, the bus is tidy. A wood stove and old bed take up most of the space. It’s the same mattress on which McCandless spent his last days, and ultimately died.

Notebooks left in the bus contain messages from people all over the world. Even the notes written by McCandless’ parents in 1993 are still there, including one from his mother:

“Sonny boy, it’s time to leave, the helicopter, will soon arrive. I wondered briefly if it would be hard to enter your last home. The wonderful pictures you left in your final testament welcomed me in and I’m finding it difficult to leave instead. I can so appreciate the absolute joy in your eyes reported by your self portraits. I too will come back to this place. Mom.”

Another view of the bus in which Chris Mcandless died

There’s also one from Krakauer, the author.

“Chris, your memory will live on in your admirers. Jon.”

Canadian Marc Paterson visited the shrine briefly before the Channel 2 News crew. He hiked out with nothing but a 10 pound bag of rice in his own emulation of McCandless.

“So he left here five days ago. Yeah, I guess that 10 pounds of rice wasn’t going to stretch out two weeks like he thought it was,” Wallace said.

The fact that so many would make this journey concerns some. McCandless became trapped when he realized he couldn’t get back across the Teklanika River. Healy/Denali Chamber of Commerce President Neal Laugman said he’s afraid it could happen again.

“When the river goes up, it goes up quick and then you’re stuck. And if you can’t get warm and it’s raining and it’s 50 degrees — you can’t get a fire started, you’ve got a problem,” Laugman said.

THe drivers seat of the magic bus

Laugman expects the movie to draw even more young wanderers on a pilgrimage to the bus.

“We want people to come up and visit us. We don’t want to ruin their experience, but we don’t want to be pulling dead bodies out of the river,” Laugman said.

Some have even suggested hauling the bus out in order to deter McCandless followers.

“I don’t see it as a sacred site. I see it as a piece of junk that was left behind after a road building project more than 40 years ago,” Cole said.

Wallace said it should be left where it is.

The bus as it is today

“The bus could save somebody’s bacon someday. A shelter in stormy times and a place to warm up and dry off before you head back for the road. Could save my bacon someday,” Wallace said.

Is it shelter from the storm, a piece of junk or a mythical shrine? So much about the McCandless story is conflicted. Even Wallace’s opinion of the man has evolved.

“I think overall, he’s viewed as a bit of a dumb ass, for lack of a better word. Heck, it’s printed right there on the bus. After having taken so many people out here and being around people that get emotionally choked up over it, you know, I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for guy. I think there will be more like him that come out here woefully unprepared and not knowing what they’re getting into even after they read the book,” Wallace said.

After a short stay, the bus as left as it was found — a lonely place that will surely attract countless others in search of their own cathartic moments in the wilds of Alaska.

A man in Fairbanks recently took the bus’ instrument panel and sold it on eBay for $177. Some people think the bus won’t have to be removed because it will be sold piecemeal, but today it remains largely as it was when McCandless lived in it for more than 100 days back in 1992.

Wayne Westerberg Picture taken in April 1992, Wayne was portrayed by the actor Vince Vaughn in the film Into the wild.

Wayne Westerberg with Chris (Click for full size image)

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and the music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more.”

Lord Byron

“Rather than Love, than Money, than Fame, give me Truth.”

Henry David Thoreau

“It should not be denied… that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West.”

Wallace Stegner

“I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it— she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do.”

Sharon Olds, May 1937
(In the movie, Chris reads this to his sister, Carine, outside the restaurant)

“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“I have lived through much and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet, secluded life in the country with the possibility of being useful to people…”

Leo Tolstoy

“…the sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head…”

Bear Meat by Primo Levi

Death’s a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to the centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness

From “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours” by poet Robinson Jeffers (As quoted by Louis L’Amour in his memoir, Education of A Wandering Man, a book Chris had with him in Alaska)

[mappress]

Quotes from Chris Mcandless and his journal :

I love working for Wayne (Wayne Westerberg), he is a grear guy. Im not to sure how long ill be hear. My feet tend to get itchy, but i love what I am doing for now. Feels good to get away from the wrath of society. People do not understand me and I surely do not undersand them.

April 27th 1992
Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But i finally got here.
Please return all mail I recieve to the sender. It might be a very long time until I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again i want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.

Postcard Recieved by:
Wayne Westerberg
Carthage, South Dakota

Well i’m still alive and thriving. The hunting can become tedious and hard at times, but i did ask for that. When not hunting i’m taking pictures to remember this life altering experience. I have made this bus a nice cosy place to live, and happy i came about it.

As I sit and think about this escapade i’ve been on, I have to say it is the best experience of my life. I can not help my love for nature. This is what I love and i will do exactly this until I can not anymore. I have missed Carine she is a sweet person. I can not help feel for my mother but this had to happen.

August 12th 1992
Today was tough, food is scarce, the river is high, and I am starting to have the fear of becoming trapped in the wild. No one knows to come looking, or even where to come looking. i have also realized that happiness is only real when shared. I do not wanna die out here. I feel that I am slowly dying due to starvation, it is not the most pleasant death but it is the one that has chosen me.

S.O.S I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST?
Page 12

I am becoming much weaker. I am only eating the few berries that I find. I hope and pray someone comes and rescues me. This might be my last journal entry. . . .

I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!

Christopher Johnson McCandless (February 12, 1968 –August 18, 1992) was an American wanderer who adopted the name Alexander Supertramp and hiked into the Alaskan wilderness with little food and equipment, hoping to live a period of solitude.

Almost four months later, he died of starvation near Denali National Park and Preserve. Inspired by the details of McCandless’s story, author Jon Krakauer wrote a book about his adventures, published in 1996, entitled Into the Wild.

In 2007, Sean Penn directed a film of the same title, with Emile Hirsch portraying McCandless.

McCandless was born in El Segundo, California to Walt McCandless and Wilhelmina “Billie” Johnson. He had one younger sister named Carine. In 1976, he moved with his family to Annandale, Virginia, an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. located in Fairfax County, after his father was employed as an antenna specialist for NASA. His mother worked as a secretary at Hughes Aircraft where Walt worked, later assisting Walt run a successful home-based consulting company in Annandale.

Despite the McCandless family’s financial success, Walt and Billie were often fighting and sometimes would contemplate divorce. Chris also had several half-siblings living in California from Walt’s first marriage. Walt was not yet divorced from his first wife when Chris and Carine were born, but Chris did not discover his father’s affair until a summer trip to southern California.

Chris mcCandless

At school, teachers noticed McCandless was unusually strong-willed. In adolescence he coupled this with an intense idealism and physical endurance. In high school, he served as captain of the cross-country team, urging teammates to treat running as a spiritual exercise in which they were “running against the forces of darkness … all the evil in the world, all the hatred.

He graduated from Wilbert Tucker Woodson High School in 1986. On June 10, 1986, McCandless embarked on one of his first major adventures in which he traveled throughout the country only to arrive at Emory two days prior to the beginning of fall classes. He went on to graduate from Emory University in 1990, having majored in history and anthropology.

His upper-middle-class background and academic success was the impetus for his contempt for what he saw as the empty materialism of American society. In his junior year, he declined membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society, on the basis that honors and titles were irrelevant. McCandless was strongly influenced by Jack London, Leo Tolstoy, W. H. Davies, and Henry David Thoreau, and he envisioned separating from organized society for a thoreauvian period of solitary contemplation.

The magic bus

After graduating in 1990, he donated the remaining $24,000 of the $47,000 given to him by family for his last two years of college to Oxfam International, a charity, and began traveling under the name “Alexander Supertramp” (Krakauer notes the connection with W. H. Davies, Welsh author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, published in 1908). McCandless made his way through Arizona, California, and South Dakota, where he worked at a grain elevator.

He alternated between having jobs and living with no money or human contact, sometimes successfully foraging for food. He survived a flash flood, but allowed his car to wash out (although it suffered little permanent damage and was later reused by the local police force) and disposed of his license plate. He also paddled a canoe down remote stretches of the Colorado River to the Gulf of California. McCandless took pride in surviving with a minimum of gear and funds, and generally made little preparation. He was, however, frequently fed or otherwise aided by people he met on his travels.

For years, McCandless dreamed of an “Alaskan Odyssey” where he would live off the land, far away from civilization, and keep a journal describing his physical and spiritual progress as he faced the forces of nature. In April 1992, McCandless hitchhiked to Fairbanks, Alaska. He was last seen alive by Jim Gallien, who gave him a ride from Fairbanks to the Stampede Trail. Gallien was concerned about “Alex”, who had minimal supplies (not even a magnetic compass) and no experience of surviving in the Alaskan bush. Gallien repeatedly tried to persuade Alex to defer his trip, and even offered to drive him to Anchorage to buy suitable equipment and supplies.

However, McCandless ignored Gallien’s warnings, refusing all assistance except for a pair of rubber boots, two tuna melt sandwiches, and a bag of corn chips. Eventually, Gallien dropped him at the head of the Stampede Trail on Tuesday, April 28, 1992.

After hiking along the snow-covered Stampede Trail, McCandless found an abandoned bus used as a hunting shelter and parked on an overgrown section of the trail near Denali National Park, and began his attempt to live off the land. He had a 10-pound bag of rice, a Remington semi-automatic rifle with plenty of .22LR hollowpoint ammunition, a book of local plant life, several other books, and some camping equipment. He assumed he could forage for plant food and hunt game.

Despite his inexperience as a hunter, McCandless poached some small game such as porcupines and birds. Once he killed a moose; however, he failed to preserve the meat properly, and it spoiled. Rather than thinly slicing and air-drying the meat, like jerky, as is usually done in the Alaskan bush, he smoked it, following the advice of hunters he had met in South Dakota.

His journal contains entries covering a total of 189 days. These entries range from ecstatic to grim with McCandless’s changing fortunes. In July, after living in the bus for several months, he decided to leave, but found the trail back blocked by the Teklanika River, which was then considerably higher and swifter than when he crossed in April. There was a hand-operated tram that crossed the river 1/4 of a mile away from where he fell in.

McCandless was unaware of this because the only navigational aid he possessed was a tattered road map he had found at a gas station, and he had left on the dashboard of Jim Gallien’s truck. McCandless lived in the bus for a total of 113 days.

On August 12, McCandless wrote what are assumed to be his final words in his journal: “Beautiful Blueberries.”

He tore the final page from Louis L’Amour’s memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, which contains an excerpt from a Robinson Jeffers poem titled “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours”:

Death’s a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The mountains are dead stone, the people
Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,
The mountains are not softened or troubled
And a few dead men’s thoughts have the same temper.
On the other side of the page, McCandless added, “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!”

His body was found in his sleeping bag inside the bus on September 6, 1992, weighing an estimated 67 pounds (30 kg). He had been dead for more than two weeks. His official cause of death was starvation.

Biographer Jon Krakauer suggests two factors may have contributed to McCandless’s death. First, he was running the risk of a phenomenon known as “rabbit starvation” due to increased activity, compared with the leanness of the game he was hunting.[5] However, Krakauer insists starvation was not, as McCandless’s death certificate states, the only cause of death. Initially, Krakauer claimed McCandless might have ingested toxic seeds (Hedysarum alpinum). However, extensive laboratory testing proves conclusively there was no alkaloid toxin present in McCandless’s food supplies.

In later editions of the book, therefore, Krakauer has speculated the poisonous fungus Rhizoctonia leguminicola could have grown on the seeds McCandless ate, aggravating his already weak physical conditions and leading to his possible death by starvation. The only piece of evidence to support Krakauer’s theory is an entry, on July 30, in McCandless’s journal which reads, EXTREMLY WEAK. FAULT OF POT. SEED…