Lost in the Wild

Chris McCandless was a 24-year-old honors graduate, star athlete, and beloved brother and son from a wealthy East Coast family. In 1990, McCandless cut all ties with his family, gave his trust fund to charity, and embarked on a two-year odyssey that brought him to Alaska where he could test his wits and the limits of his endurance. He carried only a .22 caliber rifle, a 10-pound bag of rice, a camera, books by Jack London, Leo Tolstoy and an edible plant field guide. McCandless hoped to find his true self by renouncing society and living off the land. His journey is documented in best selling book by Jon Krakauer and film by Sean Penn both entitled “Into the Wild”.

Chris McCandless came into the world with unusual gifts and a strong will that was not easily deflected. He had complete confidence that he could get himself out of any jam. He was good at almost everything he ever tried which made him supremely overconfident. His confidence grew as he mastered the hardships of the self-reliant life. He left a deep impression on the people he met as he drifted away from social entanglements toward the solitude of wild places.

He stumbled upon an old abandoned bus several days into his exploration of the Stampede Trail in Alaska’s Denali National Park. He christened it Magic Bus and decided to use as his shelter. He wrote his prophetic intention upon the interior wall: “Now comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.”

I think I know what he was trying to accomplish. Self-sufficiency has been a dream of my own since teen years - to stand in the center of a wild landscape alone, test myself and survive with grace and humility. Through the land, I would come to know myself and my purpose in this life.

I apprenticed myself to the life that I dreamed of. The goal of my early twenties was to make the dream a reality. I studied medicinal herbs and edible wild plants, raised rabbits for meat, practiced survival skills, built a house, learned to can tomatoes and preserve wild fruits. I developed a spiritual connection with the land that has sustained me and still fills my spirit well into midlife. The wild is my home and within it I thrive.

For sixteen weeks Chris McCandless flourished as he hunted small game and ate wild plants. Were it not for two blunders he would have walked out of the Alaskan woods as nameless as he walked into them in April. He would have survived to tell his grandchildren the story of his grand adventure.

When he reached his peak of joy, peace and happiness in mid July, he was ready to leave and rejoin the family he had abandoned. A river, dangerously swollen with snowmelt, blocked his passage and he retreated back to camp. Had he been more prepared with a compass and topo map he could have found the hand-operated cable car crossing the river a half-mile upstream and safely walked out. His other mistake was confusing the wild potato seed with the toxic sweet pea seed. A note found on the door of his bus suggests he was severely weakened by this misidentification, too weak to hunt and was sliding toward starvation.

"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 out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless.”

He probably died on August 18, 113 days after he'd walked into the wild, 19 days before six hunters and hikers would happen across the bus and discover his body inside.

One of his last acts was to take a photograph of himself, standing near the bus under the big Alaskan sky. In one hand he holds his final note "I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!” while the other hand is raised in a blissful farewell. Chris McCandless was at peace. You can see it in his eyes.

After sixteen years this young man’s death still fires up debate and discussion. Some believe he was a tragic hero and even make pilgrimage to his bus honoring it as a shrine. Some feel he was a shiftless dreamer unprepared and unskilled for the challenge of the Alaska bush. Some even feel he was suffering from mental illness.

McCandless was enacting the classic quest - the story of the boy on the threshold of manhood venturing into the wilderness in a rite of passage. It should have ended with his transformation and return – the man reunited with his community and sharing his newfound wisdom. Too late he realized he was part of society and not separate. Through death, he teaches us to balance the hermit with fellowship.