The phenomenal Alex Supertramp was born as Christopher Johnson McCandless on the 12th of February 1968 in El Segundo, California to Walt McCandless and Wilhelmina "Billie" Johnson. He had one younger sister, Carine McCandless. 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 with 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.
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.
After graduating in 1990, he donated the remaining USD 24,000 (approx. IDR 240 millions) of the USD 47,000 (approx. IDR 470 millions) 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." 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.
McCandless maintained almost no consistent contact with his family, and when on the road between jobs he kept books written by Jack London and Leo Tolstoy. Their unconventional views fascinated him.
McCandless wrote in his journal:
"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greather joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
Part 2: The Alaskan Odyssey
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 400 rounds 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 112 days. These entries range from ecstatic to grim with McCandless's changing fortunes. In July, after living in the bus for three 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 400 meters away from where he made attempt to cross the river. McCandless was unaware of this because the only navigational aid he had possessed was a tattered road map he had found at a gas station, but he had left it on the dashboard of Jim Gallien's truck. Then, 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."
