Christopher Johnson McCandless (/məˈkændlɪs/; February 12, 1968[1] – c. August 1992), also known by his pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp",[2] was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up.

In 1976, the family relocated to Annandale, Virginia, where McCandless's father was hired as an antenna specialist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

[10] Carine McCandless alleged in her memoir The Wild Truth that her parents inflicted verbal and physical abuse upon each other and their children, often fueled by her father's alcoholism.

She cited their abusive childhood, as well as his reading of Jack London's The Call of the Wild, as the motivating factors in her brother's desire to "disappear" into the wilderness.

[15] After graduating, he donated his college savings of over $24,000 (approximately $56,000 in 2023) to Oxfam and adopted a vagabond lifestyle, working when necessary as a restaurant food preparer and farm-hand.

[16] An avid outdoorsman, McCandless completed several lengthy wilderness hiking trips and paddled a canoe down a portion of the Colorado River before hitchhiking to Alaska in April 1992.

[18] He was also heavily influenced by 19th-century American writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau, and was engrossed by his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.

By the end of the summer, McCandless had reached the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where a flash flood disabled his car.

[20] Traveling northwest, McCandless then hitchhiked into the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he broke into a closed cabin to steal food, supplies, and money.

Completely out of cash with no means to support himself, he obtained a job as a grain elevator operator in Carthage, South Dakota.

He worked at this job for the remainder of 1991, until one day suddenly quitting and leaving his supervisor a postcard, which read:Tramping is too easy with all this money.

I've decided that I'm going to live this life for some time to come.McCandless then headed to Colorado, where he used money from his job to buy kayak supplies as well as a handgun.

[22] McCandless eventually followed the Colorado River all the way to Mexico, where he crossed the international border through a spillway at the Morelos Dam.

After encountering waterfalls, through which he could no longer navigate in a canoe, McCandless abandoned his river journey and spent a few days alone at the village of El Golfo de Santa Clara, in the state of Sonora.

Finding Mexico intimidating, with no way to support himself, he attempted to re-enter the U.S. and was arrested for carrying a firearm at a border checkpoint.

Gallien tried repeatedly to persuade McCandless to delay the trip, at one point offering to detour to Anchorage and buy him suitable equipment and supplies.

He had 4.5 kilograms (9.9 lb) of rice; a Remington Nylon 66 semi-automatic rifle with 400 rounds of .22LR hollowpoint ammunition; a number of books, including one on local plant life; some personal effects and a few items of camping equipment.

Self-portrait photographs and journal entries indicate he foraged for edible plants and hunted game including porcupines, squirrels, and birds such as ptarmigans and Canada geese.

One of the greatest tragedies of my life.” It had been speculated that McCandless was responsible for vandalizing several cabins in the area that were stocked with food, survival equipment, and emergency supplies.

In July, after living in the bus for a little over two months, he decided to head back to civilization, but the trail was blocked by the impassable Teklanika River swollen with late-summer runoff from the Cantwell Glacier; the watercourse by that stage was considerably higher and swifter than when he had crossed in April.

[25]McCandless's final written journal entry, noted as "Day 107", simply read, "BEAUTIFUL BLUE BERRIES.

[6] However, in an article in the September 2007 issue of Men's Journal, correspondent Matthew Power states that extensive laboratory testing showed there were no toxins or alkaloids present in the sweet-vetch seeds McCandless had been eating.

Ronald Hamilton, a retired bookbinder at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania,[6] suggested a link between the symptoms described by McCandless and the poisoning of Jewish prisoners in the concentration camp at Vapniarca.

He put forward the proposal that McCandless starved to death because he was suffering from paralysis in his legs induced by lathyrism, which prevented him from gathering food or hiking.

[42][43][44][41] On September 24, 2020, the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks announced it was the permanent home of McCandless's "Magic Bus 142", which will be restored and exhibited outdoors.

[48] Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote: When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn't even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate.

[...] Because I am in the unique position as both an Alaskan park ranger and a person who is, in many ways, like Chris McCandless, I feel I can speak with some authority on the subject.

[4] Jon Krakauer's non-fiction book Into the Wild (1996) expands upon his 1993 Outside article and retraces McCandless's travels leading up to the hiker's eventual death.

McCandless's story was adapted by screenwriter Chip Johannessen into a 1998 episode of Chris Carter's television series Millennium, titled "Luminary.

[60] The episode, with guest Blair Braverman, reviews several topics regarding the life, death, and legacy of McCandless and his impact on discussion of wilderness, Alaska, and domestic violence.