by Les Stroud
Included in his personal library were pop novels written by people like Michael Crichton and Louis L’Amour. Okay, I understand taking something to read. But take one or two books at the most, and make sure one of them is a survival guide. I can’t pass judgment on whether or not to take novels on such a journey, except to say that I would not do it. I would prefer to live the dream rather than have a fictional escape to it.
The only book McCandless carried that was even remotely related to surviving was a plant identification book. He must have thought this guide, as comprehensive as it might have been, would help him locate food when hunting was marginal. But it makes little sense for someone to head into the wilderness with only a plant book and no firsthand instruction. Identifying plants with only a book is very difficult and has gotten loads of people into trouble. McCandless did forage successfully for berries and other wild edibles, but for all we know, he might have walked right over any number of other wonderfully edible plants. Ultimately, the book failed him, because it’s no substitute for hands-on information. In short, you should never be certain that you can identify a new plant unless someone has taught you personally. Plants may look different depending on the location or season, and even the most comprehensive guides don’t have the room to go into such detail. McCandless’s own journal pointed to his shortcomings in this area: a few late entries point to his suspicion that he’s poisoned himself by eating the seeds of the wild potato plant.
Now on the trail, McCandless likely hiked for a couple of days before stumbling upon the rusting, abandoned bus that would became his home—and eventually, his tomb. The bus, which had been skidded into the bush for use as a hunting shelter, was equipped with rough bedding and a wood-burning stove. Not more than twenty-five miles from the nearest town, Healy, and just outside the boundaries of Denali National Park, he set up camp.
McCandless’s chance encounter with the bus illustrates that, no matter how far off the beaten track you may go, there’s always a pretty good chance you’ll find something useful. When I was in the Amazon jungle with the Waorani people, I was amazed to find that their village was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Where did they get that when they’re in the middle of the jungle, half-naked, and hunting with blow guns? They had simply found an abandoned mine some distance away and taken it all from there, carrying it through miles of thick jungle.
Apparently happy in his new home, McCandless scrawled what Krakauer called his “declaration of independence” on a sheet of plywood filling one of the bus’s broken windows:
Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ’cause “the West is the best.” And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.
Alexander Supertramp
May 1992
Chris was clearly seeking some type of higher experience, but any survival expert—and most Alaskans, for that matter—will tell you that the Alaskan bush is not the place to find it. You want that higher experience? Go spend six months in a monastery or live with a Tibetan monk for a while. Don’t use the wilderness as your temple, because there aren’t any monks who will bring you water and food. And if you don’t have what you need, you may very well perish.
But even though McCandless craved a pure experience, he seemed to have no problem compromising his ideals and using the bus as his camp. I suspect it’s because he got sick of sleeping outside and being cold, tired, and eaten by mosquitoes, which were likely already out in full force. The bus represented comfort and security, and I give him credit for recognizing that. I would have done the same thing. When you’re cold and hungry, even the purity of the experience has its limits.
That’s the thing about survival: you have to be open to the notion of compromising your ideals if it will help keep you alive. I learned this during the year I lived in the wilderness of northern Ontario with my wife at the time. It didn’t take long for us to realize that you need a community of people to survive in a primitive survival situation. That’s why tribes develop. In a tribe, each person has a specific job he or she is responsible for. The sum of all these jobs is enough to keep the individual members alive.
And while we managed to survive our year in the bush, it was at least in part because we weren’t arrogant enough to think we could do it alone. We kept our lifelines open, and made use of them whenever we needed to. When Sue miscarried, we went to town. When we both got giardia, we went to town. And every time we met people in the bush, they practically poured food on us when they heard what we were doing. So the difference between my experience and Chris’s is that I knew enough to maintain ties to civilization, whether it was for supplies, rescue, or medical assistance. We would’ve perished if we were just out there with nothing. But Chris was different. He willfully severed his link to the outside community, and paid the ultimate price.
To his credit, McCandless managed to live for almost four months, primarily by hunting the most abundant critters available in most survival situations: small game and birds. This is not to say he had an easy go of it. To the contrary, his journal makes many references to his lack of food, near disasters, and general weakness. But by the time the snow began to melt (about a month into his trip), he was able to gather more wild edibles and had greater success hunting birds and small game. Things seemed to be going fairly well—so well, in fact, that on June 9 he shot and killed a moose, providing enough meat to keep him fed for an entire year. Anybody who knows anything about survival and hears this part of the McCandless story simply shakes their head. The man shot a moose and nevertheless starved to death in the bush? How can that happen?
Unfortunately, McCandless based his butchering and preservation of the moose more on conversational advice than on hands-on experience. This again epitomizes his idealistic approach in the face of common sense. If you’re not a hunter, and you go out and manage to kill a big animal, you’re going to mangle the thing if you haven’t prepared yourself. Consider the Robertsons, who took a few kills to figure out they could keep and drink the turtle blood or render the fat. Without the appropriate skill, the meat will rot before you can use it. I imagine he worked diligently to preserve the moose—the guy certainly didn’t lack a work ethic. But he simply couldn’t compensate for his lack of knowledge. Rather than slice the meat into thin, bacon-like strips and let it air-dry in the sun, Chris tried to smoke the meat in large pieces. This prevented the sun and wind from working their magic. Most of the meat rotted.
* * *
Preserving a Moose
I’ve never had the good fortune of killing an animal as large as a moose in a survival situation. Had I found myself in that position, though, I would have made that animal the focus of my days—until the job was done. The gift of a large animal is the gift of life, for the animal represents more than just food. Clothing and bedding can also be obtained from the hide. Most aboriginal cultures believe that the animal has given its energy up to you. For that, you should thank the animal and use every possible part of it.
Before butchering and preservation even begin, the first thing you have to do is decide where the butchering will take place. For the aboriginal peoples of North America (before contact with Europeans), taking a big animal meant moving camp to where the animal was killed and preserving it on the spot. This was usually more expedient than trying to haul the animal to camp. I’m not sure how far away from his camp Chris shot his moose, but I hope he didn’t waste too much precious time dragging it back.
To begin the process, I would start by trying to collect as much of the moose’s blood as possible for drinking. All you need is a receptacle; w
atch for the flow of blood near the throat and internal organs. Blood also collects in the body cavity, but not necessarily the throat—it leaves the throat as the heart is still beating.
The next step is gutting the animal. During the process, eat the liver raw and suck the gel out of the eyeballs. Don’t throw out the lower intestines. Once you’ve squeezed the fecal matter out of them, they make great bait for small game, fish, and birds. Even the contents of the stomach can be eaten in a survival situation.
For a man in Chris’s situation—likely hungry and losing weight—the next step is to feast until you have regained energy. An adult Alaskan moose can easily weigh 1,200 pounds, so there’s little danger of diminishing your supply. I’d start by boiling and eating all those parts of the moose that spoil quickly—organs, tongue, and brains—but there’s no reason not to have a nice roast dinner or two. As always, you want to drink any broth left over after boiling; it contains important nutrients and fat.
With the energy from the first feast still coursing through my veins, I’d then set about skinning the animal (while it’s still warm—it’s much easier to remove the hide immediately after killing it). Since tanning a moose hide is a time-consuming and complex task, most people are not going to do this in a survival situation. But the hide can still prove useful. Scrape as much fat as possible off the skin (save it or make a broth out of it too; you’ll use it later) and stretch it out with the fleshy side exposed to the sun and wind.
When dry, the moose hide will resemble a big, hairy piece of cardboard. It will be good for insulation. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you are going to actually tan the hide. It is a tough and labor-intensive activity that takes a lot of skill and years of experience to master.
The next step is preserving the meat, a task possibly complicated by mosquitoes and blackflies. But you’ve got to deal with them, as maddening as their incessant buzzing and biting will be. Without a bug shirt or bug spray, I would wrap myself up with any other material on hand.
Now to the real task at hand: the meat. The first thing to know is that you shouldn’t concern yourself with flies and maggots, which will invariably appear on the meat during the preservation process. This doesn’t mean the meat is spoiled; in fact, you can eat the maggots along with the meat. To preserve the meat, start by building a drying rack from the materials in the area. Then cut the meat into thin, bacon-like strips and drape them over the rack’s cross-poles. A small, smoky fire in the middle will speed up the drying process and keep the bugs down. Will the drying meat attract other animals, such as bears and wolves? Probably. But in most cases, the animals will wander into camp, see a human, and take off.
During my year in the northern Ontario bush, I once cooked a pot of bear stew outside for an entire day. Ironically, the smell attracted a huge black bear into camp. But as soon as I set foot outside the cabin, the bear took off like a shot. Mind you, I was completely naked, as I had been giving myself a sponge bath. I never saw the bear again.
With the meat drying on racks (and a couple of roasts in my belly), I would next turn my attention to the bones. Cracking the bones reveals the delicious and nutritious marrow inside. At a minimum, Chris could have boiled the bones into stew. You can even pound the bones into bone flour, an excellent source of calcium.
Finally, we’re left with the fat. Fat is difficult to preserve, so eating it—either by frying or adding to soup—is certainly an option. But given the amount of excess fat a moose yields, the only way to save the fat is by rendering it. To do so, fry the fat until it liquefies. Then let the liquid fat cool and harden (don’t forget to eat the leftover crispies), at which point it becomes like a brick of soap. In this state, the fat will last a very long time.
* * *
Despite having most of the moose rot and go to waste, McCandless made it through another month in the bush, apparently without major physical setback, though surely he must have been challenged psychologically at the loss of the moose meat. By the time July rolled around, Chris apparently had had enough of his wilderness adventure, and decided to walk the thirty miles back to the highway and civilization. This is where his second huge setback came into play.
Chris walked for two days (covering about fifteen miles) to the spot where he had crossed the Teklanika River back in April, only to find it running high and fast, a completely different animal than what he had crossed before. Although nobody will ever know how deep the river was when he tried to cross the second time, it would have been a difficult task no matter what. A fully grown man can be knocked down by as little as six inches of rushing water; once you to get in waist deep, or thigh deep, there’s no chance of walking across safely. McCandless’s only hope of getting across would have been to try swimming in the near-freezing temperatures, or find another place to ford the river.
Despite the fact that he might actually have had a map with him (there is some debate on this point), Chris didn’t realize that there was a hand-operated tram across the Teklanika, less than a mile downstream from where he tried to cross. The National Park Service also maintained an emergency cabin some six miles south of the bus. Even without knowing about the tram, he still could have opted to explore the banks of the river, hoping to find a way across.
And while people have faulted him for not finding the downstream tram, the truth is that finding something in the bush is a lot more difficult than it seems. You could stumble upon a set of railroad tracks, turn right, and hit a town in half a mile. Or you can turn left and walk two hundred miles without seeing any other sign of civilization. So the fact that the tram was only a little ways downstream was just a fluke. If I had been in that situation, I would have walked upstream. Whenever I’ve come to a river I needed to cross, I have found that walking upstream has often brought me to a shallow, braided section I could cross; downstream is where more feeder streams come in, and the river gains momentum and seems to get bigger. But Chris chose to go neither upstream nor downstream.
He was probably also hampered by the fact that he was exhausted and scared. And in that situation, the bus represented warmth, safety, and comfort. So he turned back. I don’t agree with this decision, but I understand it. This is a fairly common problem among people in survival situations: they fail to effect their own rescue when they have the energy and supplies to do so, instead waiting until they’re scared and desperate. Had Chris set out with four or five days’ worth of food and a full belly, and in good physical condition, he might have arrived at the river and thought to himself, “I’m strong enough and I’ve got supplies, so I’m going to walk upstream for a few miles and see what I can see.” Either way, turning back proved to be the biggest mistake he could make.
Once back at the bus, McCandless again set about trying to survive, primarily by hunting small game and foraging for wild edibles. By his own account, he was quite successful, though his condition gradually worsened. What ultimately killed Chris McCandless has been the subject of considerable debate. Whether it was toxic seeds, moldy seeds, or starvation, the point is that he didn’t have to die, because I think what truly killed him was his arrogance. Even once he got back to the bus, there were steps he could have taken to ensure his survival, but didn’t.
The first thing Chris missed was lighting a signal fire. From what I’ve read about him, he probably thought he was idealistically and spiritually above doing that. Or maybe he was too arrogant to think he needed to do it. Maybe he just didn’t think of it. I feel the opposite: if I had to set fire to something to save my life, I would do it. In fact, while writing this, news came out of a man who, while lost in the wilderness, effected his own survival by burning down an electric utility pole. The repairmen came out to fix the pole and found someone in need of rescuing instead. At some point, McCandless should have recognized that he was going to die if someone didn’t rescue him. So he should have said, “I’m really sorry, Alaska, but something’s going to have to burn if I’m going to live.” A fire, particularly a big one, would certainly have at
tracted the authorities, especially if there was no lightning storm that might have started it. There’s the risk that too large a fire might have put Chris’s life at even greater risk than it already was, but he had very few alternatives at that point. The safest thing would have been to find a small island in the middle of a creek, or at a braided part of the river, and set fire to it. This might have attracted attention, and might have somewhat protected against the fire getting out of control. Of course, nothing is ever black and white when you’re in a survival situation, but his life was on the line. If it comes down to doing something illegal that could save my life, I’ll take my chances with the law. As the saying goes, it’s better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.
Chris died on August 18; he was twenty-four years old. Before dying, he ripped a page from Louis L’Amour’s memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, which contains an excerpt from a Robinson Jeffers poem entitled “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours.” On the other side of the page, McCandless added, “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!”
As sad as Chris’s death may be, I believe that for a couple of months, before his situation became desperate, he got to live the life he had sought. He was able to live a pure, simple existence, surrounded by the glory of the outdoors. The sad thing is that he didn’t have to die, and I don’t think he wanted to.
Compare McCandless’s experience with someone like Henry David Thoreau, who was clearly one of Chris’s heroes. Thoreau is heralded as one of the great voices of simple wilderness living, and yet he walked to town regularly! If anything, Thoreau proved that you don’t have to live like an ascetic to have the pure experience that Chris sought. In fact, I would argue that Thoreau’s approach enhanced the experience.