In 1990, Chris McCandless graduated from Emory University in Atlanta. He gave away the $24,000 in his savings account to a charity to fight hunger. He burned the last cash he had. And before anyone knew it (including his parents), he drove off to explore America. Not with a Carte Blache mind you; Chris voluntarily became a homeless drifter. And though he made friends along the way, he wouldn’t let any get close.
Chris certainly had his adventures, living off the land and sometimes off the good graces of others. He canoed the Colorado River to Mexico. He slept out under the stars. Chris had one final adventure up his sleeve… Alaska.
In April 1992, a truck driver dropped Chris off on the Stampede Trail in an area near Denali National Park. Chris walked several miles, forded the Teklanika River and some beaver ponds. That is until he found Fairbanks Bus 142, a bus left as a shelter for hunters along the Stampede Trail. Chris lived off the land, killing squirrel and other small game with his small-caliber rifle. He even killed a moose, but was unable to preserve it. He supplemented his diet by foraging. He tried to return, but the Teklanika River had swollen due to the glacial melt. So he returned to hunting and foraging around Fairbanks 142.
In September 1992, hunters arrived at Fairbanks 142 and found Chris dead of starvation in his sleeping bag. Into the Wild is Jon Kraukauer’s investigation into his life and death. Into the Wild was released as a feature length motion picture earlier this year. Adventure carries a certain romance for me, and the trailer drew me in. I missed the film, so I wanted to read the book.
I’m really stuck in rating this book. Krakauer’s description of his investigation and events is superb, thus I feel it deserved two thumbs way up. But I am torn rating the story. On the one hand, Chris reminds me of a friend I knew better years ago… not one to let anything get in the way of adventure. As I contemplate a thru-hike of the AT, I feel some kindred spirit with Chris. On the other hand, Chris created his little wild by not being informed. It cost him his life. He didn’t take in a map of the area that would have revealed the three cabins nearby that were fully stocked with food or the cable trolley across the Teklanika River downstream from the Stampede Trail. That flies in the face of my Boy Scout motto tendencies: Be Prepared.