The Death Of Christopher McCandless ("Into The Wild")

[Yithian]

Introduction of sorts:

Potentially 'good stuff' (I haven't yet read it).

Christopher McCandless was a big deal to the U.S. grunge generation, and even to those Europeans whose musical tastes took them culturally across the Atlantic. He seemed to - somehow - symbolise something, although how much of it was individual and media projection onto the bare bones of the story is still debated. I have a couple of Alaskan friends who tell me that the consensus in Fairbanks is that the man was foolish, and the romanticisation of his death has always been fought in that neck o' the woods to avoid either a repeat performance or an increase in the steady flow of pilgrims visiting his final home. Do they still come? I don't know. Anyway, the dust has long since settled on the story and I've just stumbled across the text of the book that popularised this rather sad tale (to call in 'tragic' would be taking sides, though it instinctively feels as if it is).

Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild_(book)

Text:
http://www.metropolitancollege.com/Into The Wild.pdf

I'd be interested to hear any perspectives Stateside.

Anybody seen the film?

 

[Mythopoeika]

I've seen it. It's a good (and very sad) film.
Recommended watching - it really captures the mood.

 

[Yithian]

Think I might have to have a look - it passed me by completely when it came out.

This may whet some appetites for the book:

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to

Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months

later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters.

Shortly after the discovery of the corpse, I was asked by the editor of Outside

magazine to report on the puzzling circumstances of the boy’s death. His name

turned out to be Christopher Johnson McCandless. He’d grown up, I learned, in

an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., where he’d excelled academically and

had been an elite athlete.


Immediately after graduating, with honors, from Emory University in the

summer of 1990, McCandless dropped out of sight. He changed his name, gave

the entire balance of a twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charity,

abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet.

And then he invented a new life for himself, taking up residence at the ragged

margin of our society, wandering across North America in search of raw,

transcendent experience. His family had no idea where he was or what had

become of him until his remains turned up in Alaska.


Working on a tight deadline, I wrote a nine-thousand-word article, which ran

in the January 1993 issue of the magazine, but my fascination with McCandless

remained long after that issue of Outside was replaced on the newsstands by

more current journalistic fare. I was haunted by the particulars of the boy’s

starvation and by vague, unsettling parallels between events in his life and those

in my own. Unwilling to let McCandless go, I spent more than a year retracing the

convoluted path that led to his death in the Alaska taiga, chasing down details of

his peregrinations with an interest that bordered on obsession. In trying to un-

derstand McCandless, I inevitably came to reflect on other, larger subjects as

well: the grip wilderness has on the American imagination, the allure high-risk

activities hold for young men of a certain mind, the complicated, highly charged

bond that exists between fathers and sons. The result of this meandering inquiry

is the book now before you.

 

[Yithian]

Potentially 'good stuff' (I haven't read it).

Christopher McCandless was a big deal to the U.S. grunge generation, and even to those Europeans whose musical tastes took them culturally across the Atlantic. He seemed to - somehow - symbolise something, although how much of it was individual and media projection onto the bare bones of the story is still debated. I have a couple of Alaskan friends who tell me that the consensus in Fairbanks is that the man was foolish, and the romanticisation of his death has always been fought in that neck 'o the woods to avoid either a repeat performance or an increase in the steady flow of pilgrims visiting his final home. Do they still come? I don't know. Anyway, the dust has long since settled on the story and I've just stumbled across the text of the book that popularised this rather sad tale.

Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild_(book)

Text:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...nxlcmlubHlubmNvb2t8Z3g6MTIyMzFmMTU4ZDI2Y2I2Yw

I'd be interested to hear any perspectives Stateside.
Anybody seen the film?

I've found an archived copy of the article that preceded the full-length book:

Death of an Innocent: In 1990 Chris McCandless left his well-off East Coast family, gave his college fund to Oxfam, and took to the road - young, idealistic, invincible. Last year, equipped with little more than Tolstoy and a rifle, he hitched into Alaska. There, the wilderness turned against him - by JON KRAKAUER​

​

Sunday 11 April 1993​

​

JAMES GALLIEN had driven five miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the hitchhiker standing in the snow beside the road, thumb raised high, shivering in the grey Alaskan dawn. A rifle protruded from the young man's pack, but he looked friendly enough; a hitchhiker with a Remington semi-automatic isn't the sort of thing that gives motorists pause in the 49th state. Gallien steered his four-by-four on to the shoulder and told him to climb in.​

​

The hitchhiker introduced himself as Alex. 'Alex?' Gallien responded, fishing for a last name. 'Just Alex,' the young man replied, pointedly rejecting the bait. He explained that he wanted a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park, where he intended to walk deep into the bush and 'live off the land for a few months'. Alex's back-pack appeared to weigh only 25 or 30 pounds, which struck Gallien, an accomplished outdoorsman, as an improbably light load for a three-month sojourn in the backcountry, especially so early in the spring.​

​

Immediately Gallien began to wonder if he'd picked up one of those crackpots who came north to live out their ill-considered Jack London fantasies. Alaska has long been a magnet for unbalanced souls, often with little more than innocence and desire, who hope to find their footing in the enormity of the last frontier. The bush, however, is a harsh place. More than a few such dreamers have met predictably unpleasant ends.​

Continues:
https://web.archive.org/web/2015021...he-wilderness-turned-against-him-1454550.html [Slightly slow to load]

 

[Yithian]

Although I like the idea of the bus still being there as a corroded memorial, I think it's going to have to be removed owing to the general stupidity of humans:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/24/us/italian-hikers-into-the-wild-bus-trnd/index.html

 

[Victory]

What a very sad and needless death.
Reading that well written article is harrowing.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I wonder how the bus got there in the first place - and what happened to its original occupants?

 

[Victory]

I wonder how the bus got there in the first place - and what happened to its original occupants?

The article says it was put there deliberately as a shelter by moose hunters.

 

[Yithian]

Apparently there was some new information in this documentary, I'm about to watch it now.

The general consensus is that the parents do not come across well.

And this article gets into the esoteric toxicology of how he died (it wasn't simply 'starvation'):

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandless-died

Edit: documentary is decent.
Alaska is so beautiful. Alas, the one person who would have put me up there is no longer with us.

 

[Yithian]

I think this is the full text of the famous book:

http://www.metropolitancollege.com/Into The Wild.pdf

(I've replaced the dead-link in the original post with this one).

 

[AnonyJ]

I've seen it. It's a good (and very sad) film.
Recommended watching - it really captures the mood.

It does indeed, also one of the very few films that made me unashamedly bawl. Not just a minor sniff but a full-on emotional cry.

Christopher McCandless may have been misguided and naive but he was a beautiful soul somewhat adrift in the dross of other's life currents. Better to be such a one than like some of his self-serving and self-forgiving family IMO.

 

[James_H]

The general consensus is that the parents do not come across well.

His sister wrote a book accusing the parents of sexual abuse though they denied it, of course.

 

[Yithian]

The BBC has put up an article on the 'pilgrimage to the bus' as a phenomenon.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50003559

 

[Jacket_Potato]

Have never seen the film but read the book a few years ago - beautifully written, he was maybe idealistic and romantic but survived far longer than i ever would out there! It always struck me that in all that wilderness out there, he was actually only a couple of miles from civilisation but either didn't know it or couldn't get there - a tragic tale

 

[Kondoru]

My outdoors friends think he was a nut job and gives wilderness living a bad name.

(So do many folk in Alaska).

He had everything on a plate and he threw it all away, including his life.

 

[His Extremely DeLux Self]

I've read it too. What a sad end for an admirable if misguided young man.

 

[Yithian]

End of a minor era: they've removed the bus by helicopter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53106441

 

[GNC]

End of a minor era: they've removed the bus by helicopter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53106441

Two other people died trying to reach the bus! I'm not sure about romanticising a very vulnerable, self-destructive young man, especially when the romanticisers show his same lack of judgement. Sad case all round.

 

[Kondoru]

Now what are thy going to do with it?

Its a piece of junk but no dobt someone will want it.

And I guess in a one horse town like Alaska, it probably counts as Heritage...

 

[GNC]

I imagine it'll be sold for scrap, given it's already killed three people.

 

[Yithian]

Two other people died trying to reach the bus! I'm not sure about romanticising a very vulnerable, self-destructive young man...

I have said as much upthread:

I have a couple of Alaskan friends who tell me that the consensus in Fairbanks is that the man was foolish, and the romanticisation of his death has always been fought in that neck o' the woods to avoid either a repeat performance or an increase in the steady flow of pilgrims visiting his final home....

Anyway, the dust has long since settled on the story and I've just stumbled across the text of the book that popularised this rather sad tale (to call in 'tragic' would be taking sides, though it instinctively feels as if it is).

Although I like the idea of the bus still being there as a corroded memorial, I think it's going to have to be removed owing to the general stupidity of humans:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/24/us/italian-hikers-into-the-wild-bus-trnd/index.html

 

[Mythopoeika]

Now what are thy going to do with it?

Its a piece of junk but no dobt someone will want it.

And I guess in a one horse town like Alaska, it probably counts as Heritage...

I would hope they put it on display in a nearby town. Tourists can then visit safely.

 

[Cochise]

There seems to be no limit to human stupidity. Not so much the man himself, but those who tried to get to the bus, knowing full well the poor chap died out there.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Update on the bus ...

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has chosen a course of action from among numerous proposals, and they've begun the process of negotiating to have the bus displayed at the University of Alaska's Museum of the North.

‘Into the Wild’ bus likely lands a home at Fairbanks museum

An infamous bus appears headed to a new home at a museum in Fairbanks after being removed from Alaska’s backcountry to deter people from making dangerous, sometimes deadly treks to visit the site where a young man documented his demise in 1992.

The state Department of Natural Resources said Thursday that it intends to negotiate with the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North to display the bus, which was popularized by the book “Into the Wild” and a movie of the same name and flown from its location near Denali National Park and Preserve last month.

“Of the many expressions of interest in the bus, the proposal from the UA Museum of the North best met the conditions we at DNR had established to ensure this historical and cultural object will be preserved in a safe location where the public could experience it fully, yet safely and respectfully, and without the specter of profiteering,” Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige said in a statement. ...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/5d4f072c2e1dd029525a216c83cf48ca

 

[Yithian]

Update on the bus ...

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has chosen a course of action from among numerous proposals, and they've begun the process of negotiating to have the bus displayed at the University of Alaska's Museum of the North.


FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/5d4f072c2e1dd029525a216c83cf48ca

All things considered, I think this is probably the best solution, although, as I think I noted before, the two former residents of Fairbanks I know told me that there was a lot of local resistance towards the celebration and sanctification of McCandless. Much of it, I might add, is very practical and beyond mere disapproval. When the next pilgrim with zero survival skills gets lost in the wilderness, it's their local rescue workers and emergency services that will have to risk their lives to save him (likely him) from his own folly--and in a relatively small community, this means their neighbours, cousins, brothers and friends.

That said, my information is getting on for a generation old now, so perhaps the bitter sentiment has faded in recent years. I'd be interested if any readers have a more contemporary view.

 

[EnolaGaia]

There's certainly a wide range of opinions about the lesson(s) one can take from McCandless' experience, even within the Alaska DNR (who will continue to officially own the bus). Personally, I have to confess I tend toward the "sadly over-idealistic fool" end of the spectrum, even though I think there's merit in some of the more recent theories about plant toxins weakening or even debilitating him in his last month(s).

Anyway ... I expect - or at least hope - any museum exhibit will attempt to represent all facets of the McCandless case and avoid promoting the dangerous notion that the romanticized version of his story is something worth emulating.

 

[Kondoru]

As a person who takes a mostly academic interest in the outdoors I hope so too.

 

[MrRING]

It has seem weird to me the shear amount of interest in the guy who seems as misguided as that missionary who tried to canoe to one of the the last remote tribes and got killed. But what elements if the story make him an ideal to some and not the passionate preacher? The attempt to live outside of society's bounds? The fact that he died?

 

[Mythopoeika]

It has seem weird to me the shear amount of interest in the guy who seems as misguided as that missionary who tried to canoe to one of the the last remote tribes and got killed. But what elements if the story make him an ideal to some and not the passionate preacher? The attempt to live outside of society's bounds? The fact that he died?

Maybe the fact that he tried to make it on his own in a wilderness, then failed. It makes him a 'tragic hero'.

 

[Yithian]

It has seem weird to me the shear amount of interest in the guy who seems as misguided as that missionary who tried to canoe to one of the the last remote tribes and got killed. But what elements if the story make him an ideal to some and not the passionate preacher? The attempt to live outside of society's bounds? The fact that he died?

I think part of it is the reports from those he met on his travels.

You'll need to have a read of Into the Wild, but if I recall correctly he made quite an impression on those he crossed paths with--much more of one than you might expect given the brevity of their interactions. He had natural charm, but also a moral rectitude about him, some suggest. Not the kind of self-righteousness that comes across as condescension, but it was if he was going to live (and die) by a code of ethics of his own choosing, and he could get along with anybody who accepted this fact. Some people admired this, and a well-written account of that admiration made it infectious.

You've also got to place the tale in its socio-temporal context. Every generation rebels against that which came before it to a greater or lesser extent. McCandless became--through no effort of his own--an exemplar of perhaps the first to second wave of those who rejected the worldview, assumptions and expectations of the baby-boomers--a generation that was (fairly or unfairly) defined in the public consciousness by its own struggle against the norms of post-war America. It similarly chimed with a cohort whose grunge-era rejection of corporate music and fashion ironically mirrored that of the 50s-beat and 60s countercultures that had conventionalised what it meant to 'drop out' or 'rebel'. Even in rebellion McCandless's generation was bound to a well-worn track: growing your hair, studying Eastern philosophy and refusing to marry or get a job wasn't even close to authentic by the early 90s--it was simply being young--and their parents were living-proof that dropping acid, living in a commune or attending Woodstock offered no guarantee that you wouldn't join the System and become The Man.

McCandless did it all over again but dumped the identikit hippy garb and made his own touchstones of Tolstoy and Thoreau.

It was, through the eyes of a receptive section of the public, a stab at originality and authenticity in an unpromising cultural environment.

The truth? We don't have access to enough of it to know, but what we do have is fertile ground for projection.

(Caveat: as this thoughtful article suggests, many of those saying 'don't trust anybody over 30' in the 1960s were themselves over thirty. The baby-boomers did not start the counterculture, but they swam in it and adopted much of the mindset: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/c...conception-about-baby-boomers-and-the-sixties).