He tore the final page from Louis L'Amour's memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, which contains an excerpt from a Robinson Jeffers poem titled "Wise Men in Their Bad Hours":
Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The mountains are dead stone, the people
Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,
The mountains are not softened or troubled
And a few dead men's thoughts have the same temper.
On the other side of the page, McCandless wrote:
"I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"
His body was found in his sleeping bag inside the bus on September 6, 1992, weighing an estimated 30 kilograms. He had been dead for more than two weeks. His official cause of death was starvation. Biographer Jon Krakauer suggests two factors may have contributed to McCandless's death. First, he was running the risk of a phenomenon known as "rabbit starvation" due to increased activity, compared with the leanness of the game he was hunting. However, Krakauer insists starvation was not, as McCandless's death certificate states, the only cause of death. Initially, Krakauer claimed McCandless might have ingested toxic seeds (Hedysarum Alpinum). However, extensive laboratory testing proves conclusively there was no alkaloid toxin present in McCandless's food supplies. In later editions of the book, therefore, Krakauer has speculated the poisonous fungus Rhizoctonia Leguminicola could have grown on the seeds McCandless ate, aggravating his already weak physical conditions and leading to his possible death by starvation.
Part 3: Was Supertramp a visioner or merely an unstable youngster?
Inspired by the the Supertramp’s ironic story, Jon Krakauer, a remarkable adventure writer, decided to write McCandless’ story in details and attempted to reveal the phsychological background behind McCandless’ actions and decisions. Krakauer's book made Christopher McCandless a heroic figure to many. By 2002, the abandoned bus (No. 142) on the Stampede Trail where McCandless camped became a tourist destination. Sean Penn's film Into the Wild, based on Jon Krakauer's book, was released in September 2007. In October 2007, a documentary film on McCandless's journey by independent filmmaker Ron Lamothe, The Call of the Wild, was released.
Old bus or no, Fairbanks 142 has become something of a reliquary, a shrine to which many have come seeking understanding: of McCandless, of the wilderness, of themselves. A memorial plaque to McCandless is screwed to the inside of the bus, bearing a message from his family that ends with the phrase "We commend his soul to the world." Inside a beat-up suitcase on a table are a half-dozen tattered notebooks. The first entries, from July 1993, in red pen on paper yellowing with age, are personal notes from his parents.
McCandless has been a polarizing figure ever since his story first broke in 1992. Because he chose not to bring a map and a compass (items which most people in the same situation would have considered essential), McCandless was completely unaware that a hand-operated tram crossed the otherwise impassable river 400 meters from where he attempted to cross. Had McCandless known this, he could easily have saved his own life. Additionally, there were cabins stocked with emergency supplies within a few kilometers of the bus, although they had been vandalized and all the supplies were spoiled, possibly by McCandless. Yet, Denali National Park spokesman denied that McCandless was considered a vandalism suspect by the National Park Service. The most charitable view among McCandless's detractors is that he was somewhat lacking in basic common sense, i.e., venturing into a wilderness area on his own without adequate planning, preparation, and supplies was almost guaranteed to end in disaster.
One such example is the story of Sir John Franklin who was sent by the British Admiralty to map Arctic Canada in 1819. Before he knew it winter had set in and at least two of the expedition members were killed and then eaten. Franklin had survived this trip. Several years later in 1845 he returned to the Arctic to find the Northwest Passage, but neither he nor any of the men under his command were seen alive again.
Nature has no respect for those that are unprepared. Franklin refused to use the resources that the land provided and McCandless had relied too heavily on the land without adequate knowledge.
