“So I embarked on another round of testing.”
May 12, 2016 6:52 PM   Subscribe

How Chris McCandless Died: An update to ‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer [Medium] The debate over what killed Chris McCandless, and the related question of whether he is worthy of admiration, has been smoldering and occasionally flaring for more than two decades now. Shortly after the first edition of Into the Wild was published in January 1996, University of Alaska chemists Edward Treadwell and Thomas Clausen shot down my theory that the cause of McCandless’s death was a toxic alkaloid contained in the seeds of the Eskimo potato plant, Hedysarum alpine, also known as wild potato. When Treadwell and Clausen completed chemical analyses of the Eskimo potato seeds I’d sent them, they found no trace of any poisonous compounds. “I tore that plant apart,” Dr. Clausen explained to Men’s Journal in 2007. “There were no toxins. No alkaloids. I’d eat it myself.”

Related:
- Previously.
- “How Chris McCandless Died” by Jon Krakauer [The New Yorker]
- “Krakauer’s Wild Theory on McCandless Gives Short Shrift to Science” by Dermot Cole [Alaska Dispatch News]
posted by Fizz (82 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's strange how McCandless' untimely end still resonates today with the ongoing reasons to find out what he ate that killed him. But it will never stop the chorus of people who happily call him a dumb-ass that got what he deserved, though, which is one of the sadder parts.*

*never read the book, only know the story through news articles, but still have enough empathy that not everyone is smart as X who obviously would have known not to eat the thing
posted by Kitteh at 7:00 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


"Hamilton is neither a botanist nor a chemist; he’s a writer who until recently worked as a bookbinder at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania library."

It's not often that my alma matter sees mention for anything positive, strange to see it turn up here.
posted by namewithoutwords at 7:09 PM on May 12, 2016


My theory on why people are so obsessive about the story is that it's a horrifying failure of the UR-myth of American literature: Go West, young man! to solve your problems. McCandless does exactly as an American protagonist ought, heading into the asceticism and self-reliance of the Western wilderness to heal his soul ... and dies right on the cusp of that redemption. Is the magical power of the frontier a lie? Is it gone forever? Did he bring the sickness of civilization with him? Can we no longer escape ourselves?

It's like a terrible twisted mirror version of a beloved fairy tale that's particularly haunting because it follows the familiar logic of the story, but comes out horrifyingly and inevitably wrong.

(I also think this is part of the appeal of Cheryl Strayed's Wild, that she follows the Go West! narrative successfully to self-healing and redemption. Basically I think there is a limitless appetite in the US for Go West! narratives, and Into the Wild is particularly compelling because it's basically a horror genre version.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:17 PM on May 12, 2016 [116 favorites]


*never read the book, only know the story through news articles

Read the book. There's way more to the story than a dude tromping out into the woods and (maybe) eating the wrong things. It's a sad cautionary tale about all sorts of topics.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:23 PM on May 12, 2016 [24 favorites]


It's weird how much visceral hate and anger the McCandlesss story provokes. I've read the book, seen the movie, read other things, etc. because for whatever reason it is interesting. But so many people seem mad at this person they never met for not being smart enough/being too cocky/whateverelsetheywanttocallhim to survive in a situation which, yes, he put himself into willingly but still it's tragic. I just don't get the outsized response I see every time he's brought up.
posted by downtohisturtles at 7:35 PM on May 12, 2016 [8 favorites]


. and dies right on the cusp of that redemption. Is the magical power of the frontier a lie? Is it gone forever? Did he bring the sickness of civilization with him? Can we no longer escape ourselves?

except droves of seekers have been dying alone of exposure or whatever in the great frontiers of the Americas since 1492 (and before, of course). Seriously, do a little research into something like the Klondike Gold Rush. So this is far more of a reality check than the exposure of a great cultural lie.
posted by philip-random at 7:35 PM on May 12, 2016 [10 favorites]


"[But] it wasn’t arrogance that had killed him, it was ignorance…"

Oh, I beg to differ. It requires a lot of arrogance not to recognize your own ignorance.

I haven't read Into the Wild since it was assigned to me in high school 10 years ago. I thought Chris McCandless (and Jon Krakauer) were arrogant jerks then, and this article reminded me exactly why.
posted by i_am_a_fiesta at 7:38 PM on May 12, 2016 [16 favorites]


Those without spirit hate those that have spirit. They want them dead, and they want them dead in a way that cows others.
posted by No Robots at 7:39 PM on May 12, 2016 [29 favorites]


I just don't get the outsized response I see every time he's brought up.

A version of hype backlash. Similar to how people might become OTT negative about television shows that have been touted as the Best Show Ever, I think a lot of people's anger about McCandless is a reaction to how his story has been so mythologized and the way he's been turned into a legend and idol for many. Of course, McCandless' story is more tragic than any television show.

Many Alaskans in particular seem rather sick of it, I imagine because they've often had to deal with foolhardy youth deciding that they'll just go live off the bush for a few months without bothering to do research or take elementary precautions because somehow that doesn't square in with their idea of romantic wilderness grandeur. That's gonna get people's hackles up, especially if they have personal experience with how unforgiving and brutal the Alaskan wild can really be.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 7:43 PM on May 12, 2016 [10 favorites]


I just don't get the outsized response I see every time he's brought up.

Well, this is part of it:

Those without spirit hate those that have spirit. They want them dead, and they want them dead in a way that cows others.

This is why McCandless-naysayers seem to have such a strong reaction: because we have to put up with stuff like this in discussions about him. We make fairly commonsensical criticisms of McCandless's actions, and get told that we're dead inside
posted by fatbird at 7:45 PM on May 12, 2016 [112 favorites]


Yes. he had spirit. But he had zero training, zero preparation, zero education. Completely ignored anyone who tried to give him useful advice.

I'm not glad he died, far from it. Yes, it is unfortunate.

But I find absolutely nothing about his story that warrants any kind of reverence or admiration.

"Bumbling fool" is a charitable reading of the guy.
posted by yesster at 7:46 PM on May 12, 2016 [38 favorites]


It's strange how McCandless' untimely end still resonates today with the ongoing reasons to find out what he ate that killed him.

Not with Krakauer on the case! Rest assured, we'll be hearing revenue generating updates for the rest of his life.
posted by mwhybark at 7:47 PM on May 12, 2016 [14 favorites]


This is his fourth theory on what exotic poison led to McCandless's death.

McCandless starved to death because he ran out of food. Krakauer is attempting frame the wilderness for murder.
posted by justkevin at 7:50 PM on May 12, 2016 [18 favorites]


Go West, young man! to solve your problems.

I'm not sure anybody meant Alaska when they said that.
posted by srboisvert at 7:51 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


But so many people seem mad at this person they never met for not being smart enough/being too cocky/whateverelsetheywanttocallhim to survive in a situation which, yes, he put himself into willingly but still it's tragic.

He was a young guy, without dependents. Not a slacker, not a parasite, either--someone who worked as he went and didn't cause trouble. Inexperienced, he did some foolhardy things and he paid the ultimate price, taking no one else down with him. Basically, he's the least offensive possible version of the dude who blunders into a dangerous situation and gets himself killed. I don't understand the resentment, either. You don't want to die like McCandless, but you could do a lot worse than to be like him otherwise.
posted by praemunire at 7:59 PM on May 12, 2016 [39 favorites]


Thoreau had his problems, too (and there's a cottage industry attempting to document how full of shit he was), but Walden is still interesting. Same with McCandless. I think that's part of what makes McCandless so appealing: the fact that he does have obvious flaws, that he isn't perfect. He's relatable.

That said, he probably did die of plain old starvation, and Krakauer should probably let it go. It kind of cheapens the story. There's a dignity in trying and failing, and trying to shift blame so that his death was just an random accident takes away that dignity.

The original article/book was pretty engaging, and the movie was good too. Emile Hirsch's performance as McCandless, in particular, is worth watching for.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:00 PM on May 12, 2016 [7 favorites]


McCandless pissed me off as a sixteen year old forced to read Into the Wild because he didn't prepare, and he went into a dangerous situation, and he died for it. Sixteen-year-old me was furious: why do we care about a young idiot who didn't acknowledge the reality of his situation and who went on to get himself killed?

It wasn't until about five minutes ago that I realized that teenaged me was angry because very few of us have the potential to be mythologized when we blatantly ignore all received wisdom and die because we didn't think to plan ahead. If a woman had done that, she'd be blamed for it much more harshly--there wouldn't be all these people rushing to eulogize her and turn her story into the Great American Tale. It is, among other things, a very masculine story, in a very unflattering way.
posted by sciatrix at 8:07 PM on May 12, 2016 [125 favorites]


Blaming McCandless' death on toxic seeds is kind of like blaming the goalie for losing the hockey game. There were a fuck of a lot of mistakes made long before he may or may not have poisoned himself with wild plants, and he was never going to get out of there alive. I put more planning into an afternoon fishing than he did into his grand "adventure".

He's a cautionary tale, an example to others of what not to do.
posted by Sternmeyer at 8:17 PM on May 12, 2016 [13 favorites]


Plus there's the poaching and squatting. How fucking authentic. Idiot.
posted by yesster at 8:21 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


I've always been amused by the baffled bewilderment of the local Alaskans. This wasn't wild untamed wilderness, this was someone's backyard. I doubt the unshowered squatting poacher would seem so appealing if he was in your back acre of woods.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:32 PM on May 12, 2016 [6 favorites]


I doubt the unshowered squatting poacher would seem so appealing if he was in your back acre of woods.

When did we stop talking about McCandless and get back on Thoreau?
posted by chimaera at 8:34 PM on May 12, 2016 [15 favorites]


McCandless starved to death because he ran out of food. Krakauer is attempting frame the wilderness for murder.

No, in the amount of time he was there, starvation would not explain his death. McCandless was quite clear in his diary that he was suffering from paralysis. Despite all his faults, McCandless accurately diagnosed his own death. He accidentally poisoned himself.
posted by JackFlash at 8:35 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Does nobody remember this update to the story? The Chris McCandless fan club is fairly embarrassing but the Chris McCandless hate club is heartless.
posted by atoxyl at 8:36 PM on May 12, 2016 [8 favorites]


Sure, but that's not what people who are angry about the book are reacting to. No one is thrilled that McCandless died. People object to the mythologizing of his story as somehow admirable rather than tragic and preventable and small. It's a form of hype backlash, not just people celebrating because this poor stupid kid got himself killed.
posted by sciatrix at 8:40 PM on May 12, 2016 [17 favorites]


When did we stop talking about McCandless and get back on Thoreau?


Even if he was playing at My First Cabin down the street from his friends, at least Emerson invited Thoreau to that parcel of land.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:42 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


"The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head."
posted by nicebookrack at 8:44 PM on May 12, 2016 [16 favorites]


I doubt the unshowered squatting poacher would seem so appealing if he was in your back acre of woods.

I'm sure there's someone unshowered and squatting within a few blocks of my apartment. No poaching because there's nothing to poach, of course. I might or might not want to hang out with the person, but my judgment is based more on the harm they do or don't do.

This same week there was an FPP on a couple of cave-divers who undertook far greater known risk to recover the body of someone else who deliberately encountered huge risk and died for it. To fish up a corpse, which could no longer appreciate anything, they subjected themselves to a significant likelihood of becoming corpses themselves. The sympathy was largely universal--something about loyalty. McCandless was just trying to work out some of the big questions that torment anyone who thinks seriously about life. I don't know that he was, or would have become, one of the deep thinkers of our age, but I can appreciate that he at least tried to follow those questions out. If he was dumb, he sure enough paid for it. Is death not enough, that opprobrium needs to be heaped on top of it, too?
posted by praemunire at 8:44 PM on May 12, 2016 [17 favorites]


I think what got me was how solipsistic he was in his obsessively single-minded vision of nature and freedom. In his travels he kept running into people who had similarly individualistic takes on life but over and over refused to take any kind of advice or acknowledge their lived experience.

It wasn't even arrogance; other people just didn't seem to register to him. Whether it was giving away to charity the trust fund his father gave him or showing up to his McDonald's shift not having showered in two weeks or the "poaching and squatting" mentioned above, he willfully, deliberately ignored the wishes and desires of every human being he interacted with.

There's something weirdly compelling, for both admirers and detectors, about someone so totally wrapped up in themselves they truly do not care what other people think.
posted by Ndwright at 8:47 PM on May 12, 2016 [10 favorites]


He reminds me of many people I went to college with, but they mostly survived their dumb phase and are today normal adults. I don't understand the adolation at all, and even less when it has the tinge of envy.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:48 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


My opprobrium isn't for McCandless, who by all available information was simply naive and foolish, it's reserved for those who engage in his hagiography.
posted by chimaera at 8:48 PM on May 12, 2016 [14 favorites]


My theory on why people are so obsessive about the story is that it's a horrifying failure of the UR-myth of American literature: Go West, young man! to solve your problems.

You could do worse than to pick McCandless as the emblem of that myth of the redemption of the open West. He thought he was going into a deserted wilderness, but there were already people there. He thought he knew better than to listen to their advice, and put himself at needless risk. There must be some allegory about using a .22 to poach a moose and then letting the meat spoil because you don't know how to preserve it.

I don't despise him. I think his story is sad, but not in a romantic way. I really don't understand why so many people idolize him. To me it's immaterial whether he starved or was poisoned. If people want someone to idolize for living alone in the Alaskan bush, they should take a look at Dick Proenneke.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 8:52 PM on May 12, 2016 [28 favorites]


When I look inside myself to see what makes me mad about McCandless, it's my fear that someone could be so naive and foolish. What if someone close to me was like that? What terrible tragedies would they inflict on themselves and others?
posted by storybored at 8:53 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


I read Into the Wild just as I was starting university and there is something compelling about the idea of just taking off and heading out into the woods. But, I'm also an Eagle Scout and I can recall shaking my head many times at the types of choices that Chris was making.

“No...no...Ugh, why didn't you bring...?If only you had....That's not smart...”

His story is mostly sad. I definitely read it as a cautionary tale and not as something inspirational.
posted by Fizz at 8:54 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm an Eagle scout, and while that doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things, I still have deep appreciation for what my old Scoutmaster referred to as "proper preparation" 35 years later. Do the work ahead of time, know what you might be getting yourself into, and try to foresee the many ways it can all go wrong, sometimes very quickly. Own your space, own your decisions, know yourself and your limitations, and prepare for shit to go wrong. Because it will. McCandless's situation infuriates me because no matter how far he trekked into the woods, he could not escape his own arrogance. I mourn his death, but jeez, the dude made some bad decisions and paid the ultimate price for them. It is sad because it was avoidable and preventable.

I have enjoyed Krakauer's writing ever since I read his first take on the Chris McCandless story, which was in a Sunday newspaper supplement several years before it appeared in book form. Yes, Krakauer's tone and writing style makes him come off as a prick at times, but I still enjoy his writing. I don't blame him for wanting to get this detail right, even if his pursuit of the cause of McCandless's death has crossed over to the ridiculous at this point. He could have backed away from this story years ago, and he could still back away from it by saying that finding the root cause was too arduous or expensive or just too obscure. He hasn't done those things, though. He has stayed with the story, and he's trying to get it right. And, in stark contrast to McCandless, he has listened to the opinions of others and followed their advice. I'll give him his due for that, and even if he has muddied the waters. I don't think my respect for Krakauer's work or writing is misplaced. I appreciated the update.
posted by mosk at 8:58 PM on May 12, 2016 [16 favorites]


It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall McCandless going on at length about how much better and more liberated be was than all those dead-on-the-inside office drones etc. Which is why I use the word "solipsistic" instead of "arrogant" . Arrogance looks like. . .hmm, well. . .

Those without spirit hate those that have spirit. They want them dead, and they want them dead in a way that cows others.

Ah yes, that. That's what arrogance looks like.
posted by Ndwright at 9:10 PM on May 12, 2016 [20 favorites]


When I look inside myself to see what makes me mad about McCandless, it's my fear that someone could be so naive and foolish. What if someone close to me was like that? What terrible tragedies would they inflict on themselves and others?

I think there's a fundamental split between people who see themselves and others as so embedded in a web of social obligation that their lives are ultimately not really their own and people who conceive of a deeper autonomy. I tend towards the latter (as long as you don't have people actually dependent on you for their welfare), but with the proviso that you have to bear judgment of what you used that autonomy for. The former is not ridiculous or spineless or spiritless, though. I felt sorry for his family. I'd be devastated if one of my siblings died that way.
posted by praemunire at 9:17 PM on May 12, 2016


A lot of McCandless's actions (and arguably his disordered thinking too) make more sense when you read in the context that he was literally fleeing a wildly abusive father and miserable home life of physical and emotional abuse. His romanticizing of nature and his lack of preparation and skills (as well as his arrogant attitude and disconnection from others) read a bit differently in that context. It's a little easier to see how someone struggling with significant trauma might make these specific bad decisions, and why his decision-making and risk-assessing skills themselves were so faulty/unusual/non-standard.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:39 PM on May 12, 2016 [60 favorites]


If people want someone to idolize for living alone in the Alaskan bush, they should take a look at Dick Proenneke.

But this guy lived to the ripe old age of 86. Emo's can't stand old dudes.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:56 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall McCandless going on at length about how much better and more liberated

McCandless didn't go on about anything because he was dead. The book is a fictionalized account of his life as created by Krakauer.
posted by JackFlash at 10:08 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


No, in the amount of time he was there, starvation would not explain his death. McCandless was quite clear in his diary that he was suffering from paralysis. Despite all his faults, McCandless accurately diagnosed his own death. He accidentally poisoned himself.

He entered the wilderness on April 28 and died in August. His journal suggests he was alive for at least 113 days.
posted by justkevin at 10:13 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


No Robots: "Those without spirit hate those that have spirit. They want them dead, and they want them dead in a way that cows others."

Eponysterical
posted by symbioid at 10:17 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


The whole "he was unprepared" accusation misses the point. Yes he was, deliberately. He chose not to take a map, etc, because that was part of the challenge he set himself. You can say a skydiver is "stupid and unprepared" because he's jumping out of a perfectly good plane, with only a parachute (which could easily fail! And they do!) to get him to earth safely, just for some stupid selfish thrill. It would be much smarter and safer to NOT jump out of a plane. Do we hate failed skydivers, because why didn't they have the sense to carry a fully functional jetpack?
posted by The otter lady at 10:38 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


As someone with a rural background it's likely to the contempt I feel to urban hipsters/yuppies that sigh and swoon about how wonderful and authentic farming is and how they could just find themselves if they had a nice farm in the country. Or the office workers who do the same about construction and blue collar jobs. No, they aren't romantic, they are hard, grinding things where romantic idiots get themselves and others hurt and killed going in unprepared so they can find themselves or seek spiritual solace or whatever.

Basically just listen to Common People. These are some people's lives, not a fucking holiday.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:42 PM on May 12, 2016 [31 favorites]


The whole "he was unprepared" accusation misses the point. Yes he was, deliberately. He chose not to take a map, etc, because that was part of the challenge he set himself. You can say a skydiver is "stupid and unprepared" because he's jumping out of a perfectly good plane, with only a parachute (which could easily fail! And they do!) to get him to earth safely, just for some stupid selfish thrill. It would be much smarter and safer to NOT jump out of a plane. Do we hate failed skydivers, because why didn't they have the sense to carry a fully functional jetpack?
I would absolutely consider a skydiver "stupid and unprepared" if they jumped out of a plane without having bothered to pack a parachute. I wouldn't necessarily call them that in a place where their loved ones might hear about it, but that's what I would be thinking.

McCandless didn't just jump out of the plane -- he deliberately made it a point not to pack a parachute.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:47 PM on May 12, 2016 [12 favorites]


Do we hate failed skydivers, because why didn't they have the sense to carry a fully functional jetpack?

In your analogy, McCandless is the skydiver who jumped out of the plane sans parachute and figured he could find a soft patch of ground to land on somewhere.

These are some people's lives, not a fucking holiday.

Amen.
posted by Sternmeyer at 10:48 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


So, it's been quite a few years (at least 15, I think?) since I read the book, but I remember coming away from it with the distinct impression that McCandless was neither some true and authentic free spirit, nor a bumbling, arrogant idiot, but suffering from mental illness that led to a series of increasingly poor decisions, which decisions ultimately resulted in his death.

Did I, like, make that up out of whole cloth, or was there something in the book that led me to that conclusion?
posted by dersins at 10:55 PM on May 12, 2016 [14 favorites]


The note in his left hand reads, “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!”

No, you pissed off a lot of people on the internet because you did it wrong.
posted by bongo_x at 11:22 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


Like all humans he had to make his choices based on his knowledge of the world, and like many people in his demographic his knowledge was lacking and clouded by self-assurance. Most of us survive that period of our lives, he did not. If the movie is to be believed he had an "aha" moment of personal growth toward the end but it was too late. That was the tragedy.

It's a little interesting to me that he's a minor culture war flashpoint - he seems to come up once or twice a year here and there's always a vocal crowd that is pretty upset by his style of rule-breaking.
posted by MillMan at 11:33 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]


I used to think he was just some silly dumbass dude who should t have thought so highly of himself to have thought he could just ignore what locals told him. I found him annoyingly Holden Caulfield-ish. but at the end of the day, I don't know. He didn't do anything I find admirable but that's just me. I don't have much in common with the dudes who think McCandless is a hero for living in an abandoned bus he happened upon in the woods. But I'm not really interested in living off the land.

Chris McCandless was clearly a different kind of person. It's all in the book. He was clearly and rightfully troubled, having grown up in a chaotic and dysfunctional family. I think he was looking to be at peace with himself.

But his whole "fuck the govt and fuck their rules" stuff was disrespectful. He wasn't even from Alaska. He just traipsed up there to do whatever he wanted, no hunting license. It's annoying. But show me a young white college grad dude guy from the wealthy suburbs who isn't at least a little bit entitled, annoying and self absorbed. Can't hide it.
posted by discopolo at 1:51 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yes. he had spirit. But he had zero training, zero preparation, zero education. Completely ignored anyone who tried to give him useful advice.

Which really is the spirit of America, a country that each year proudly celebrates getting saved from their own inepitude by the people it dismissed as savages.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:52 AM on May 13, 2016 [16 favorites]


dersins: that’s the impression I had too. I’d seen the film and read the book (or the other way round, I don’t remember) and I found the story very sad and moving in that sense. (Luckily at the time I was BLISSFULLY unaware of the extreme reactions the story had provoked). I never shared the specific appeal of the whole notion of going out to live in the woods on your own, it’s such an offputting idea to me I’d rather live in the middle of the most chaotic city if I have to pick extremes. Still, there is something in the story that speaks to bigger questions about life and freedom and the whole literary tradition of Walden and the myth of self-reliance etc. etc. it’s easy to see how that could be easily romanticized.

But personally, I found the story affecting because it’s clear to me he was not well mentally. And that’s why I find the whole discussion on what killed him very puzzling, and frankly, offputting.

The last photos of him are so sad and haunting, he looked like someone with severe anorexia, the fact he got at that stage at all, without realizing it was time to abandon his pursuit and look for help, is in itself a sign he was not well mentally. I’ve been through an eating disorder myself and for me that was the part that affected me most.

Is it really so crucial (other than for scientific research purposes, I mean) to establish if there was something specific that poisoned him? He was horribly severely underweight and malnourished, how could he have survived much longer in that state? He would have died soon after anyway, no? Why does it matter so much, isn’t it sad either way?

Or is the stigma of mental illness so insufferable that all sorts of convoluted theories have to be found to explain why it was just an accident?
posted by bitteschoen at 3:31 AM on May 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


McCandless pissed me off...because he didn't prepare, and he went into a dangerous situation, and he died for it.

This is the standard sneer at McCandless, that he was naive and unprepared. It's been a while since I read the book, but something like 95% of the thing is about how McCandless does in fact live in the wild. All over the place, for weeks and months and years (?) in the kind of harsh and inhospitable places that ultimately killed him. And in fact I remember a solid few pages at the end in which Krakauer dismisses the notion that McCandless was naive, and outlines just how McCandless had made a full break from his previous life and was a fully independent nomad. He lived the hermit life for a long long time before he died, so it wasn't like he'd been backpacking for a week during Spring Break. Krakauer may have dramatized McCandless' demise for maximum ironic effect, but if it occurred as Krakauer reported, it was truly a tragedy due to McCandless having a revelation about his existence and expressing a desire to "return to the real world." And then he died, due to misjudging the timing of the spring thaw, which trapped him at that bus (or so he thought).

And it can't be ignored that while McCandless came from a somewhat privileged, upper-middle class family, at least part of his motivations came from the abused he suffered from his parents, something his sister wrote about in a book of her own.
posted by zardoz at 3:41 AM on May 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


Krakauer's original Outside Magazine article changed my life, literally. I say that without an ounce of exaggeration. I quit my mind numbing job working in an office as a city planner, sold everything, bought a sailboat and moved aboard. The rest is history and has been pure bliss.
posted by humboldt32 at 3:51 AM on May 13, 2016 [14 favorites]


Though how does one define mental illness? I'd be wary of overly broad definitions which encompass acts of nonconformity (which, after all, can often be said to be, to a greater or lesser extent, self-destructive), for that way lies Soviet-style “social psychiatry”. And on the other side, there are theories that being a well-adjusted member of society is, in itself, a set of mental illnesses.

Was Jean-Paul Sartre mentally ill when he postulated his idea of “radical freedom”?
posted by acb at 3:52 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


I compare what McCandless did to running a marathon without training. Sure, that would make it more of an adventure. One could just do it - hell, some people do and are fine. But I've run marathons and I've hurt myself running. I feel like not training shows a lack of respect for the challenge. It's interesting because in deciding to wander around Alaska, he seemed to be saying that it was both a big challenging thing that would change his life but also so not challenging that it's not worth doing some minimal preparation.
posted by kat518 at 3:57 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


. But he had zero training, zero preparation, zero education. Completely ignored anyone who tried to give him useful

That accusation is not correct. He did extensive research. He had done numerous back country expeditions, including extended solos in other unforgiving regions. He survived for months in Alaska without incident until he got sick and died.

Expert back country adventurers die all the time on their expeditions. It is an intrinsically dangerous activity and it is easy to find fault because hindsight is 20/20.
posted by humanfont at 4:20 AM on May 13, 2016 [12 favorites]


And on the other side, there are theories that being a well-adjusted member of society is, in itself, a set of mental illnesses.

Yeah that’s all very interesting form a philosphical perspective and all but put it this way, if you had brother/sister/son/daughter of his age, and imagine they did the same but somehow miraculously you’d managed to track them down while they were still alive, and you saw in what state they were in, what would you do, would you sit down with them and patiently debate the nature of mental health and the ills of society? Or you know, convince them to let you take them to a hospital and get better physically and stop starving, and once they are not starving anymore, help them get a healthier relationship with themselves, so they don’t try again anything as life-threatening and foolish as disappear into the wild with no preparation and no contact with the outside world?

Mental health/illness is a convenient shorthand for all that, I don’t care what definitions or labels we agree to use, but you know, if I cared about someone in a situation like that I’d be worried sick about their state of mind just as much as about their physical state, that’s all. It’s not insulting or diminishing of their personality and aspirations and dreams, all the motives that pushed him to such an extreme choice could have been directed to other less tragic ends. He could have found a way to put all of that to use in his life in a different way. Didn’t he seem to realize that himself at the end?

So why should it be taboo to consider his story from a mental health perspective? Because it’s such a manly myth, the lone hero in the wilderness? If it had been the reverse situation, with the sister going off in the wilderness and starving herself, and the brother left behind, would it be more obvious there were psychological issues there?
posted by bitteschoen at 4:39 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Like all humans he had to make his choices based on his knowledge of the world, and like many people in his demographic his knowledge was lacking and clouded by self-assurance. Most of us survive that period of our lives, he did not. If the movie is to be believed he had an "aha" moment of personal growth toward the end but it was too late. That was the tragedy.


As far as I understood the book, that's basically Krakauer's take, and he makes it pretty clear throughout that he knows he's not an unbiased narrator, because he (1) did the exact same things as McCandless, but was (2) lucky enough not to die, and so thinks that we shouldn't judge McCandless too harshly.

On the other hand, again, as far as I read the book, I don't think Krakauer doesn't also think that the many, many people who told McCandless "Hey, don't do this" along the way were wrong.

And I could sort of sense Krakauer's discomfort when he talks about the emergency shelters that were trashed--he sort of says "Well, it wouldn't have been entirely out of character or against the spirit of the mission, but there's no proof that he did it..." in a way that read to me that he knew that that action would have been both reckless and showing complete disregard for somebody else who needed the shelter, so he'd prefer to believe that McCandless didn't do it.
posted by damayanti at 5:11 AM on May 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


suffering from mental illness that led to a series of increasingly poor decisions, which decisions ultimately resulted in his death.

I definitely shared that opinion after finishing the book. In particular, the giving away of large sums of money seemed like a warning sign, not to mention the grandiosity of his plans.
posted by scratch at 5:34 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


philip_randon except droves of seekers have been dying alone of exposure or whatever in the great frontiers of the Americas since 1492 (and before, of course). Seriously, do a little research into something like the Klondike Gold Rush. So this is far more of a reality check than the exposure of a great cultural lie.

This bears repeating. The pioneering spirit is more often than not pathological self belief and arrogance. When it works out the myth is borne. When it doesn't work out we don't usually hear much about it.
posted by asok at 5:41 AM on May 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


Thinking more about this, I am pretty much neutral about his story. The risk taking and search for meaning seem very normal to me, though definitely with the impact of the difficult upbringing and perhaps some mental health issues. I'm sorry that he died instead of having a fun adventure and later becoming an author or whatever would become his passion.

But where I do feel critical is of some of the responses to his story. I think it was in the last fpp about this where I read about the people making pilgrimages to his bus, including some deaths of unprepared visitors, which is painfully ironic. I don't get that at all, nor do I really understand why so many people have such intense responses and connections to the story.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:45 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Labeling him as mentally ill is just a different attempt to find some cause and effect and/or meaning in his death. We can fantasize about how we might have avoided his fate, by choosing a different path or because he was different. Bring a map or radio for emergencies; do more research, don't be crazy, don't be stupid, etc. Unfortunately we are mortal and we die at a time and place that is pretty random. We can control some of the risks and try to eek out more; but at any moment the odds can turn against you.
posted by humanfont at 5:59 AM on May 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


My theory on why people are so obsessive about the story is that it's a horrifying failure of the UR-myth of American literature: Go West, young man! to solve your problems. McCandless does exactly as an American protagonist ought, heading into the asceticism and self-reliance of the Western wilderness to heal his soul ...

Whereas every Canadian knows that you never head into the bush without preparation and training - because the wilderness can kill you.

And it makes me think of how those intrepid 'explorers' of the Americas - voyageurs, Lewis & Clarke, etc - always had indigenous people showing them the way.
posted by jb at 6:50 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Labeling him as mentally ill

Just out of curiosity, if I had written something like "I remember coming away from [Into the Wild] with the distinct impression that McCandless was suffering from some form of cancer," would you say I was "labeling him" as someone with cancer?
posted by dersins at 6:56 AM on May 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


Cancer typically isn't used to denigrate victims of it. Mental illness sadly sometimes is.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:39 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


It is interesting to compare the Chis McCandless story to Jose Alvarenga.
posted by Xurando at 8:32 AM on May 13, 2016


Just to clarify, so no one gets offended by proxy for poor McCandless, I was speaking from an entirely sympathetic point of view, as someone who wept genuine tears at the end of that movie, as someone who could relate with his story in her own personal way, and as someone who has dealt with mental illness. So if anyone read any of that as "labeling him as mentally ill" with an attitude of "haha look what a crazy stupid asshole he was", that’d be a very warped reading, it’s definitely not my attitude.

Look for the number "13.3" in this page and read on from there, up to "highlighted this passage from Walden", it has some interesting and thoughtful observations.

Krakauer may well "be right" about poisoning from this or that substance, and I do appreciate his intentions but what I find offputting is that he seems so invested in finding that external culprit substance to the point of overshadowing the fact that this was someone who was already slowly dying from prolonged starvation. And that was a terribly sad consequence of romanticizing so much the idea of a personal spiritual quest for authenticity in the first place, without planning and caring enough for his own wellbeing and sustenance. The sister’s account of abuse in the family only makes it all the more tragic and relatable. I am entirely sympathetic to this tragic story, not so much with the stigma around mental health issues, and it seems to me that stigma can be displayed just as equally by some of the most extreme cult-following "defenders" as by the crudest unsympathetic "haha what an idiot" detractors. It’s just as offputting really.
posted by bitteschoen at 8:44 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Krakauer may well "be right" about poisoning from this or that substance, and I do appreciate his intentions but what I find offputting is that he seems so invested in finding that external culprit substance to the point of overshadowing the fact that this was someone who was already slowly dying from prolonged starvation.

The question is why McCandless didn't just walk out instead of starving. By August, the waters had receded so he could have walked to the road in a day, even in his emaciated state. The reason he didn't is because he lost the ability to walk because he was semi-paralyzed due to accidental poisoning. The point Krakauer is making is that he didn't voluntarily starve himself to death or commit suicide. He starved to death because he couldn't walk.
posted by JackFlash at 9:08 AM on May 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


"When I look inside myself to see what makes me mad about McCandless, it's my fear that someone could be so naive and foolish. What if someone close to me was like that? What terrible tragedies would they inflict on themselves and others?"

Isn't this true of any story, though? My favorite book is Anna Karenina, but it would be terrifying if one of my friends jumped in front of a train. I would be mortified if on e of my friends, at the urging of his wife, killed his friend the king so that he could accede to the throne as prophesied by random witches. Wouldn't it be weird if one of my friends had to kill his mother to avenge his father, who was murdered for sacrificially killing his sister. And these are just the three books closest to me as I type this.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:22 AM on May 13, 2016


I feel as though there is a kinda-important distinction between fiction and non-fiction that you may not be taking into account.
posted by dersins at 9:35 AM on May 13, 2016


How about , then, the gal who thought God told her to lead her nation's army to victory in battle, and did so; and was then captured and burned at the stake?
posted by No Robots at 10:19 AM on May 13, 2016


How about Joan of Arc? Is her story tragic? Yes.

Would I be sad if one of my friends "thought God told her to lead her nation's army to victory in battle, and did so; and was then captured and burned at the stake?" Yes.

Would I be mad about this? Almost certainly.

I would probably be mad about organized religion enabling--encouraging even!--my friend's behavior. I would probably be mad at whatever nation-state allowed my obviously delusional friend to take command of its army. I would probably be mad at whatever nation-state committed a war crime by burning a POW alive.

I might even be a little mad at my friend for getting so many other people killed in her pursuit of glory, even though I knew she wasn't really at fault. This is the same kind anger that people often feel when someone they love commits suicide.

Rational or not, it's both really, really super common and totally understandable that someone might feel that way. I'm sorry for being obtuse here, but I don't at all understand the point that you are trying to make.
posted by dersins at 10:43 AM on May 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


You forgot to mention anger at anyone who finds her inspiring.
posted by No Robots at 11:02 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


You forgot to mention anger at anyone who finds her inspiring.

Probably more frustration than anything else (and of course the external manifestations of frustration can be almost identical to those of anger), in the sense of being frustrated that people claiming to be inspired by actions that got thousands of people killed for no good reason is just going to perpetuate the cycle of thousands of people being killed for no good reason.

Again, though, what is the point that you are trying to make? I for reals don't understand.
posted by dersins at 11:18 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


(humanfont)That accusation is not correct. He did extensive research. He had done numerous back country expeditions, including extended solos in other unforgiving regions. He survived for months in Alaska without incident until he got sick and died.
The last person known to have seen McCandless alive had to beg him to take the man's own boots because he could plainly see how completely inadequately prepared McCandless was for the task for which he had set himself.
(zardoz) This is the standard sneer at McCandless, that he was naive and unprepared. It's been a while since I read the book, but something like 95% of the thing is about how McCandless does in fact live in the wild. All over the place, for weeks and months and years (?) in the kind of harsh and inhospitable places that ultimately killed him.
Both of the sections I have blockquoted make reference to the fact that McCandless had previously lived in other wild regions. And while it's true that there are many foundational wilderness survival skills that are shareable from place to place, others are extremely specific and the more challenging the environment the more crucial local knowledge is.

I live in Alaska, but in a part very different than the region where McCandless died. And as it happens, the trailhead for one of the local trails I like to walk starts near a place with a tragic history. In 1942 the Japanese invaded some of the furthest outlying Aleutian Islands (Attu and Kiska) and in response the U.S. federal government decided that the natives who lived in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands had to be relocated "for their protection." The U.S. military simply showed up in villages throughout the islands, told the inhabitants they had a few hours to gather whatever they were taking with them, and then forced them from their homes. Through the forest, along this trail that I often walk, you can see the ruins of some structures that were once part of one camp where some of the evacuees were forcibly resettled.

Federal government policy towards Alaska Natives in those days was a combination of racism and ignorance (arguably still is, but it was much, much worse in those days) and the bureaucrats making the decision knew little about Alaska or the people they were resettling. The attitude seems to have been "they're natives, used to living off the land. Just put them down someplace where there's fish and game and they'll be fine." Unfortunately for the Aleuts it doesn't quite work that way.

These were smart, tough, capable people who lived by their subsistence skills and who had a cultural history of thousands of years' survival in the Aleutians' near-Arctic environment. But they had been taken from a place where many of them had never seen a tree and abruptly dumped without assistance into one of the densest temperate rainforests on the planet. A woman I know who was the child of evacuees from the Pribilofs said that many of her relatives suffered terribly from claustrophobia in the new environment -- they'd never been someplace where you couldn't see the horizon and suddenly they had to live in an area where it's not uncommon to not be able to see more than 20 feet in front of you. The forests of southeastern Alaska are actually incredibly bountiful -- probably a hundred times more hospitable than the harsh conditions in the Aleutians or the interior region where McCandless died -- but within a few years nearly 10% of those resettled had succumbed to starvation or disease brought on by malnutrition.

What's my point? That "the wilderness" is not one big undifferentiated blob and that survival skills are not entirely transferable from one type of wilderness to another and that it is perilous to ignore that or to think otherwise.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:20 PM on May 13, 2016 [20 favorites]


An unreliable account of a witness vs. the facts that he didn't die of exposure. He didn't get serious frostbite. He lasted months, not days. His choice of footwear, sleeping bag and clothing didn't do him in. Had he been the unprepared characicture created by Alaskan prejudices against those from the lower 48; he wouldn't have made it more than a few days.
posted by humanfont at 2:10 PM on May 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'll have to dig up an earlier reference to verify this, but at the point he was found he was already severely underweight, and was so prior to ingesting the seeds. I've heard some describe him as doomed even if the seeds hadn't killed him because he was already past a point of no return with respect to starvation, having spent those months on a diet lacking in key nutrients--much the way that sailors can starve to death on a steady diet of fish.

The seeds aren't a "but for" to his success at surviving in the wild. He was already in very bad shape at that point.
posted by fatbird at 3:06 PM on May 13, 2016


fatbird, there are references to that in a 1993 article in The New Yorker and especially in this piece by a filmmaker who made a documentary about the story (and also in another already linked piece here).
posted by bitteschoen at 4:07 PM on May 13, 2016


fatbird, that reminds me of rabbit starvation, a sickness, eventually fatal, caused by a diet that might naively seem kind of healthy (high protein and very low fat).
posted by en forme de poire at 4:12 PM on May 13, 2016


"I feel as though there is a kinda-important distinction between fiction and non-fiction that you may not be taking into account."

OK, so In Cold Blood. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hell, to go back to my earlier reference, Thoreau was kind of an asshole. There are plenty of narrative non-fiction examples as well as fictional ones. The mere fact that you'd feel bad if someone you knew behaved like a character in a story is somehow a reason to dislike the story would eliminate nearly all stories from consideration. In many cases, the fact that these characters behave in a way that would earn condemnation from "normal" society is exactly what makes those stories so interesting and important.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:43 PM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


The family (all scouts but me; I like flush toilets) has been watching Alone -- reality show where people are stranded on Vancouver Island until only one is left. It becomes very clear that even if you teach desert survival skills or have been in the army for years, you are still basically unprepared for survival in a rainforest where everything is soaked through and it rains all the time.
posted by wenat at 8:14 PM on May 15, 2016


He didn't harm anyone else, he just lived his life the way he wanted to. I'll never understand why that riles people so.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:29 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


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