Into The Wild

Jan Burres and Bob

Itinerant couple who meets McCandless in the summer of 1990 when he is searching for edible berries alongside U.S. Highway 101. Estranged from her own son, Jan takes a special interest in McCandless... Jan: middle-aged rubber tramp who travels around the West selling knick-knacks at flea markets. She meets McCandless when she picks him up hitchhiking. They become close, and he stays in written contact with her until going into the Alaskan wilderness

Jim Gallien

Last person to see McCandless alive. In April 1992, he drops off the young man on Alaska's Stampede Trail, giving McCandless his boots and advising him to reconsider his plan to live off the land.

Ronald Franz

Eighty-year-old man who gives McCandless a ride from Salton City, California, to Grand Junction, Colorado. After McCandless's death, Franz heeds the young man's advice to "hit the road" and live off the grid ... spent most of his adult life in the army, lost his family in a drunk driving accident, and never fully recovered from the loss ... Chris incited his paternal impulses

Chris' belt

Spends much time carving intricate portrayal of his journey on this item

Outdoor Magazine

the January 1993 issue of this magazine featured a cover story about Chris' death ... author is a writer for this magazine and wrote the McCandless piece

Rubber tramps

vagabonds who have a vehicle

Leather Tramps

vagabonds without a vehicle, who thus have to hitchhike or walk

Fairbanks City Transit System #142

Abandoned bus in the Alaskan wild where Chris stays for a while ... eventually dies here of starvation ... left an SOS note here, which hikers later discovered ... abandoned when the Fairbanks company's project was halted in 1963

Anza Borrego/Desert Hot Springs

After Chris said goodbye to Jan Burres in Salton City, he hiked and set up camp at the edge of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, 4 miles from the town where he met Franz ... desiccated, phantasmal badlands ... Oh-My-God Hot Springs: a bizarre encampment of about 200 misfits in trailers, at the center of the camp was a pair of shallow, steaming pools

Devil's Thumb

Author was fascinated by a picture of this mountain ... determined to climb this seemingly unclimbable mountain in Alaska during his youth, parallels to Chris' journey ... convinced that climbing it would change his life

The Slabs

Campsite in Niland where Jan Burres was staying ... Chris unexpectedly appeared here

Baja California, Mexico

Chris canoed down the Colorado River and ended up in Mexico ... was caught trying to illegally come back to the US and kept in jail for one night

Colorado River

Chris canoed on the Colorado River, apparently traveling through Lake Havasu, the Bill Williams River, the Colorado River Indian Reservation, the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, and the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground.

Everett Reuss

Everett Ruess was a young artist, poet and writer who explored nature including the High Sierra, California Coast and the deserts of the American southwest, invariably alone ... As a case study, Ruess's story is used to compare to McCandless's. His story however is considered more understandable by the author, even though he also renounced his life and exited the world. As a youth, his life was filled with traumatic instances, constantly moving, never feeling like he had a place in society. He continues to reject a place in society as an adult and becomes an outdoorsman and lover of nature. He similarly dislikes his parents and is close to his sibling and ultimately dies in the wild at age 21. Everett Ruess is a twenty year old born in 1914, who is intensely passionate about nature, and spends almost all of his time after he is sixteen on the move in a very similar manner to McCandless. He eventually disappears without a trace in Utah.

Emory University

In Atlanta, where Chris studied and attended school before dropping all of his possessions and leaving... Chris graduated from her in May 1990 ... was a history and anthropology major here

Wild potato root/seed

Chris purchased some in South Dakota before heading North, intending to plant a vegetable garden ... some believe Chris never planted them, and instead ate the poisonous seed (others claim he would have to eat pounds of them to die from it) ... most important food of the Dena'ina, but become dry and tough in the summer ... Chris began eating wild potato roots on June 24, but on July 30 he claims to be extremely weak, blaming the potato seed ... Hedysarum alpinum ... author convinced that a fungus on this root is what killed Chris

Alexander Supertramp

Chris' "alter ego", signed graffiti with this name in several places during his journey, including at the site of his death... the "cocky moniker" he had give himself

Sam McCandless

Chris' half-brother, nine years older than him ... read the article about the death of the hiker, but it never occurred to him that it could be Chris ... didn't know Chris very well, as he grew up in his mother's household in CA/Colorado ... identified the photograph of Chris to confirm that the hiker was in fact Chris

Walt McCandless

Chris's father, a NASA scientist and entrepreneur who develops advanced radar systems. Married twice, Walt McCandless has a total of eight children. Chris is from his second marriage.

Billie McCandless

Chris's mother and Walt's second wife, who works with Walt on various business ventures involving his radar systems.

Wild sweet pea

Closely related to the wild potato root, slightly smaller but very hard to tell the two apart ... poisonous/toxic ... Hedysarum mackenzii

Wayne Westerberg

Grain elevator operator who befriends McCandless in north-central Montana in the fall of 1990. Westerberg offers him a ride, a place to stay, and then a job.

El Segundo, CA

Where Chris was born here in 1968 ... when he visited here in an earlier drive out west, he discovered that his father had lived a double life

Stampede Trail

Where Chris was dropped by Gallien in Alaska... start of his final journey, Chris followed it into the wilderness ... was a trail blazed in the 1930s by Earl Pilgrim, and a Fairbanks company won a contract from Alaska to upgrade the trail (the project was halted and the third bus was abandoned on the trail)

Annandale, Virginia

Where McCandless' parents lived and where he grew up

Carthage, South Dakota

Where Westerberg was brought as a young boy by his adoptive parents ... McC developed an attachment with this town after working at Westerberg's grain elevator ... would tell almost everyone he met that South Dakota was his home

Teklanika River

ten miles past the improved road, the Stampede Trail crosses this river ... a fast, icy stream who waters are opaque with glacial till