Journey into the unknown. 2026.
Fresh out of Emory University a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless decides to make a one-of-a-kind decision. He gives $24,000 to charity, leaves his car and belongings, burns all the cash in his wallet, and starts fresh in his nomadic lifestyle. McCandless even cuts up his ID and cards. Then he was ready to set out in the world. Christopher McCandless lived a nomadic life which rejected society to seek a desire of isolation.
McCandless was born on February 12, 1968, in El Segundo, California. His first backpacking trip was climbing the highest peak in the blue ridge mountains, he proceeded to do this climb every single year until he was 16. McCandless father, Walt, had children with and was still legally married to his first wife when Chris and his sister Carine were born. When Chris found this out, it infuriated him so much to the point where he thought his whole entire life was a lie. In Carine’s memoir, it is stated that their parents inflicted verbal and physical abuse upon their children. In 1976, Walt was offered a job at NASA, so they moved to Virginia. But living and working together affected their marriage and their arguments in front of Chris and Carine caused them to be distant from their parents. Chris was a great student in school, he had an “A” average, and he was a leader of a team of cross-country runners. But he was as stubborn and would work his cross-country team-mates hard and take them to trails where they would easily get lost. One act of his stubbornness was when he received an “F” for a subject because he didn’t want to write a paper the way his teacher wanted him to. After graduating high school in 1986, he took a solo adventure for the summer and arrived two days before he was supposed to start. He arrived at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia looking unkempt while his roommate was more well-dressed. Chris went on to have amazing grades while his roommate dropped out several weeks later. He graduated from Emory University in 1990, but saw honors irrelevant and later said that university was not something to aspire to.
He changed his name to Alexander Supertramp after leaving Atlanta and started a new life. He left Virginia in the summer of 1990, while driving a Datsun west in a cross-country trip to California. His car was not in good condition and broke down multiple times as he made his way out of the eastern United States. His car also had no insurance with an expired license plate. When the end of the summer arrived, he had finally reached the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, in Boulder City, Nevada, where a flash flood disabled his car. With a fear of fines and a possible arrest, McCandless removed the license plate, took all he could carry, and kept moving on foot. Traveling to the northwest, McCandless hitchhiked into the Sierra-Nevada mountains, where he broke into a cabin to steal food, money, and supplies. Through the winter of 1990-1991, he appeared to live in hermit camps with other people in the Sierra-Nevada region. He was suspected of burglary when his food and money ran low. In early 1991, he left Nevada and hitchhiked through southern California, then Arizona, and then from North to South Dakota. When McCandless was in California, he met Jan Burres and her boyfriend Bob. They were a couple who gave him food and shelter. McCandless was completely out of cash and had no money to support himself, so he got a job as a grain elevator operator in Carthage, South Dakota. McCandless proceeded to work at this job for the remainder of 1991. One day, he suddenly quit and left a postcard: “Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal … I’ve decided that I’m going to live this life for some time to come,” McCandless wrote. After that, McCandless headed to Colorado and used his money from his job to buy kayak supplies and a handgun (without a permit). He navigated through the Colorado river, and was pursued by park rangers and wildlife. There were people who had reported sightings of McCandless white water raft in dangerous areas with no safety gear. He eventually followed the Colorado river all the way to Mexico, where he crossed the international border though a split way. Soon, McCandless abandoned his river journey and spent a few days alone at the village of El Golfo de Santa Clara. He found Mexico intimidating, and wanted to go back to the U.S. When he tried to go back to the U.S., he was arrested for carrying a firearm and was briefly held in custody. But he was released without charges and his gun was confiscated. McCandless began hitchhiking north and ended up back in North Dakota. Then in 1992, he hitchhiked from North Dakota to Fairbanks, Alaska.
“I now walk into the wild, Alex,” was the ending to a postcard received by Wayne Westerberg, his former boss. After hiking for a while along the snow-covered Stampede Trail, he came upon an abandoned bus. It was along the overgrown section of the trail near Denali National Park in Alaska. This bus is where he set up camp and lived off of the land. McCandless had about 10lbs of rice, a Remington Nylon 66 semi-automatic rifle, multiple books, including one about local plant life, camping equipment, photographs and journal entries. For food he foraged for berries and hunted animals such as porcupines, squirrels, and various birds. On June 9th, 1992, he illegally stalked and shot a moose and wrote in his journal that he regretted it and it’s one of the greatest tragedies of his life. Since the meat of the moose was not properly preserved, it spoiled within days of the shooting. One day while McCandless was out foraging, he ate a moldy alpine sweet vetch seed, not knowing this seed was toxic to someone as malnourished as him. When he went back to the bus, he took a photo of himself waving, while holding a note that wrote “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!” His final journal entry was noted as “Day 107,” and read “BEAUTIFUL BLUE BERRIES.” Days 108 through 112 had no words and only slashes, and on day 113, there was no entry.
On September 6, 1992, a hunter who was seeking shelter found the bus that McCandless had been using. Upon entering, the hunter found a body and notified the police. State troopers confirmed that it was McCandless’ 24-year-old decomposing body in the sleeping bag. McCandless lived a short, but very interesting and important life. He traveled to many different places such as Mexico, The Dakotas, California, and Alaska. He met many people along the way and experienced things that no ordinary person does.