Transcription
This river is a death trap. It's the very river that blocked Christopher McCandless from Into the Wild from returning to civilization, which ultimately led to his slow and painful death that occurred in 1992.
And then, just about 18 years later, this very same river struck again. A young European couple, intrigued by Into the Wild, were trekking through the Alaskan Wilderness in an effort to reach the famous bus where Christopher McCandless met his ultimate fate. Bus 142, it's called.
This couple had almost made it too. There was only one thing left standing in their way, which was the swollen and raging Teklanika River. A previous hiker had strung a rope across the river, and so Claire Acorn and her boyfriend tied themselves to this rope and began wading through the chilling waters. They inched their way closer and closer to the other side, but when they found themselves about halfway across the river, something, excuse my language, absolutely up happened.
The rope that they were tied to was too loose, and it dipped down just low enough to get caught in the violent current, which pulled the couple underwater. Acorn's boyfriend quickly grabbed his knife and cut himself loose, desperately swimming towards the shore. He was able to reach the river's banks, but once he realized that Claire was still in the water, he sprang back into action. He swam back out, but tragically, by the time that he reached her, she had already drowned, and it was too late.
The death of Claire Acorn is scary, and it's sad, and unfortunately, it's not the only death that has occurred in relation to the story of Christopher McCandless. From the dangerous river current sweeping hikers away to ill-fated copycat attempts modeled after McCandless, or at the very least inspired after him, there's been a wake of tragedy following the popularization of his story.
With that said, is Chris McCandless himself to blame for all this chaos and death? Or is it the fault of each individual seeking to visit bus 142 or mimic McCandless's lifestyle? Or is it nobody's fault at all, and these deaths are just an unavoidable consequence of an otherwise inspiring and powerful, at the very least, entertaining story? I can't answer those questions for you. Those are going to be up for you to decide for yourself by the end of this video.
This is the dark side of Christopher McCandless's story, the side without the romance and without the charm. This is going to definitely be a pretty difficult story for me to tell, and the reason for that is because it's essentially the story of the fallout from another story. It's really going to take the entire video for me to kind of pull everything together, and so please watch until the end, and then I want you to leave a comment and let me know what you think about all this craziness.
And so with that said, I invite you on a trip to one of, if not the most beautiful state in all of the United States, that would be Alaska. This trip is free, but if you're a repeat viewer of my channel and you haven't already done so, you got to hit that subscribe button to cover your admission. Our ultimate goal is to get to 1 million subscribers, and we've got a long ways to go, and so if you appreciate this content, subscribing to the channel is a free way to give back.
In the spring of 1992, Chris McCandless set off into the Alaskan Wilderness on the Stampede Trail, and once he took a step into the woods and left the trailhead, he would never be seen alive ever again. The 24-year-old McCandless was in the middle of a pilgrimage of sorts, having given up his comfortable and privileged life in order to immerse himself in nature and live in a simpler way. He found himself taking shelter in an abandoned bus along the Alaskan trail that he was following, but by July of that same year, he decided that he wanted to return to civilization.
And so McCandless tried to make his way back out, but when he reached the banks of the Teklanika River, he found it was far too swollen to cross safely. This left him essentially trapped, and he had no choice but to return back to the bus, and tragically, as I'm sure most of us know, this marked the beginning of the end for McCandless, and by the time August was over, he was dead.
McCandless's story would go on to be told in the popular book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, which was later adapted into a movie under the same name, and it was also covered in countless articles, documentaries, and later on YouTube videos. The story of Chris McCandless has become so popular that I'm not even going to tell you the rest of his story in this video. Instead, we're going to start by focusing on why his story has resonated so strongly with people, and then we're going to get into the deaths that have come in its aftermath.
But before we get too far into these more disturbing details, I'd like to keep things light for just a moment and tell you about Holzkern. That's right, Holzkern is the sponsor of this video. They are an Austrian company that makes watches, jewelry, and other accessories for both men and women, and I mean, just look at this beautiful, beautiful watch. This one is called Space Dust. It's made from walnut and marble, and I mean, look, guys, I've never really been known for my sense of fashion, but with this Holzkern watch, I think I look pretty good. But perhaps more importantly, my girlfriend thinks I look good with it, and so I don't know, I think you're going to look good with their products too.
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With that said, let's now get back to discussing why the hell people were so captivated by Chris McCandless's story in the first place. So, it's difficult to sum this up coherently, I'll be honest, but I think we can probably all see the romantic appeal of just dropping everything and heading off into the wild, right? On the surface, this sounds so freeing and so simple. You don't have to worry about bills, deadlines, politics, or even what society thinks of you as a whole. I think that when things get tough and when people feel, I don't know, stuck in their current place in life, it's easy to fantasize about just up and leaving it all behind.
And yet, 99.999% of people who have this fantasy don't actually act on it. Obviously, Chris McCandless, however, was in the tiny minority of people who actually did go out there and start a new life, traveling around and eventually living off the land. Now, I know the full story behind his decision-making and what he ended up doing is obviously a lot more complicated than I've made it sound like here, but I don't know, I think that McCandless found such a solid place in our culture, you could say, because he did what so many of us only dream of doing. And though he ended up dying in the process, I almost feel like that adds to the allure of his story, like he died doing what he loved and what we all, or a lot of us anyways, I'll say, fantasize about doing. At least that's how some people view the story.
A lot of other people, including many of those who live in Alaska itself, have a very different view on McCandless and his pilgrimage. Many of these people would tell you that he was reckless at best and just plain stupid at worst. They'll point out the fact that he was woefully unprepared when he set out into the Alaskan Wilderness. They'll accuse him of breaking into cabins and stealing food and possessions from locals in the area. They'll remind you that before he came to Alaska, he was arrested at the Mexican border for illegally crossing and carrying a firearm. And perhaps most importantly, they'll point out that his actions caused him to die a slow, lonely death all by himself.
He certainly wouldn't have known it, but McCandless's death would mark the start of a chain of events that would lead to multiple other deaths over the years that followed, at the very least indirectly. And on that note, I want to be clear, I'm not blaming McCandless for these deaths, or anybody else for them for that matter, but it is just a fact that at least four deaths have either been loosely associated or directly related to his story.
The first of these deaths was that of Claire Acorn, that I told at the beginning of this video. And the next one I want to talk about is that of Dustin Self. In mid-March 2013, 19-year-old Dustin Self up and left his home in Oklahoma and drove to the mountains of Southwestern Oregon. He had apparently watched the movie Into the Wild, that very same film adaptation of McCandless's story, and wanted to quote, "see if he could live in the wild." Self was also apparently fascinated by a church in the area that uses hallucinogenic tea as a sacrament.
Self's parents tried to talk him out of going, but unfortunately, he wouldn't listen. At one point, he had actually called his father and told him that he was lost on a remote road, and he also called his ex-girlfriend acting extremely paranoid. His ex-girlfriend was quoted saying he, referring to Self, said, "There were devil worshippers at every gas station that he stopped at to get help, and that all the plants and animals were dead everywhere, and he was trying to bring them back to life. He was really, really upset and really scared." And then the line went dead.
This would be the last time that anybody heard from Dustin Self. He was reported missing a short time later, but a few weeks went by until any new clues were discovered after that. Eventually, though, a rancher located Self's pickup truck on a remote section of Stonehouse Road on Steens Mountain. The pickup truck had slid off the road, and it contained Self's laptop, some food, and his road GPS. This discovery of the vehicle seemed promising. It was unlikely that Self made it very far beyond the car, but unfortunately, his case then went cold.
No additional clues were discovered, and his family hoped that he had either made it off the mountain somewhere or had been laying low and living off the land just like Chris McCandless did. And then, over a year later, in October of 2014, a hunter on Steens Mountain was in the process of quietly stalking a deer when he made a horrifying discovery. He was moving through some short aspen trees when all of a sudden, he looked down and he saw some discarded clothing and a leg bone. He reported the finding, and by the end of the day, it was clear to investigators that these were unfortunately the remains of Dustin Self.
They'd found the keys to his pickup truck, and they eventually found his driver's license and his credit card. There was no indication of foul play or self-harm. It appeared as though Dustin Self had simply died from exposure. We'll probably never know exactly what his motivations were, but it is clear that Christopher McCandless's story was on Self's mind when he left home and headed for Oregon. When he initially went missing, he was actually framed as a sort of Christopher McCandless copycat, almost, and Into the Wild copycat, with many headlines reading like this one from ABC News: "Oklahoma Teenager Inspired by Into the Wild Missing in Oregon Wilderness."
Later on, after Self's body was discovered, his family started to downplay the connection to Christopher McCandless. His father said that Self's interest in Into the Wild was overblown. And so, with that said, exactly how much of a role McCandless's story played in Self's decision-making is unclear, but it is clear that it at least played somewhat of a role, even if it was small.
In a disturbing twist to what is already an incredibly disturbing sequence of events, between the time of Dustin Self's disappearance and the discovery of his body, another out-of-state teenager traveled to Oregon and then went missing. And just like Dustin Self, himself, this teenager had also reportedly been inspired by the story of Chris McCandless.
In August of 2013, 18-year-old Jonathan Croom was visiting a friend in Seattle, Washington. On the 16th, he left Seattle and he was presumed to be heading back to his home in Arizona. He was scheduled to begin his college classes only a few days later, but Jonathan Croom never made it back to Arizona, and it didn't take long before his parents realized that something had gone wrong. And almost immediately, they began wondering, wondering if their son had been copying Chris McCandless by leaving everything behind and living out in the wild.
Croom had reportedly been talking about the movie Into the Wild before he disappeared. And then on August 21st, Croom's vehicle was discovered. It was found on a remote road in the town of Riddle, Oregon, which is a tiny community of only like 1,200 people that's located just off of Interstate 5. Inside the vehicle was Croom's wallet, $200 in cash, and perhaps most concerning, a book on survival.
Now, this discovery of Croom's vehicle only amplified the theory that he was trying to copy Christopher McCandless. After he went missing, Croom's parents said that he was quote, "obsessed with the movie Into the Wild." The fact that he had left behind his money and was clearly studying up on survival tactics was not a good sign. Croom had been a Boy Scout in his younger days, but despite this, he was far from an experienced outdoorsman. Croom's father was quoted saying, "He's been watching the movie, referring to Into the Wild, a lot. Maybe," he said, "I want to do it. That's our theory because he kept talking about the movie. Just as in that movie, referring to Into the Wild again, he left everything behind and took off, and we just don't know what he left with." He was talking to another friend that it would be great to just leave penniless and just work along the way and get resources like they did in the movie.
Unfortunately, the ending to Jonathan Croom's case was just as tragic as that of Christopher McCandless's, perhaps even more so. On Monday, August 26th, 2013, a search team using cadaver dogs discovered Croom's body, located only 1,000 feet away from his abandoned vehicle. And tragically, it was evident that Croom had taken his own life. This was shocking, but not totally unexpected either, as Croom had apparently gone through a breakup recently, and he had also apparently sent some concerning text messages to a friend around the time of his disappearance.
Much like the story of Dustin Self, it certainly wouldn't be fair to say the entire situation was inspired by Christopher McCandless, but it's also abundantly clear that McCandless's story, once again, played a small role at the very least. I'm just speculating here, but if anything, maybe it gave the boys that final, like, boost of confidence that they needed to run off into the woods.
This next story, however, was definitely directly related to Christopher McCandless, and that's because, just like the story of Claire Acorn that I shared at the start of this video, the most recent death that I'm aware of, at least associated with Into the Wild, came as a result of a hiker trying to reach bus 142.
In July of 2019, a newlywed couple from Belarus were hiking through the Alaskan Wilderness, zeroing in on the famous location where Christopher McCandless met his end. And when they reached the Teklanika River, they had to make a tough decision. And once again, as a reminder, this is the very same river that killed Acorn and that ended up trapping McCandless, which was kind of the beginning of the end for him. The Teklanika River was once again extremely swollen, and any attempt to cross it would have been essentially a game of Russian Roulette.
Now, I'm not sure if the couple from Belarus were ignorant to the danger that they were in, or if they just had tunnel vision and were focused on getting to the bus, but regardless, they went for it, and the results were tragic. As Verom M Mava and her husband were making their way across the river, the violent current swept her underwater. Her husband did his absolute best to save her, but by the time he reached her down the river, she had unfortunately already died. This story was almost identical to the story of Claire Acorn that had occurred some 9 years earlier and it ended with equally tragic results.
And for every person who's died trying to reach the famous site, there have been numerous others who have had to be rescued and almost lost their lives as well. There have been so many rescues along the trail that leads to bus 142, the Stampede Trail, many of them related to that very same Teklanika River, by the way, that I can't even come close to going over all of them in this video. According to my research, between 2009 and 2017, there were at least 15 search and rescue operations to save hikers who were trying to reach the bus, and I'm unsure of how many occurred after 2017, but I did read that in February of 2020, five more hikers, these ones from Italy, were rescued on their return trip from the bus.
I want to note real quick that these five hikers were actually rescued because they initiated an SOS call from a GPS satellite communicator. I always advocate for hikers to carry these life-saving devices in my videos, and I've gotten a ton of questions about like, where to find them or which ones to get, and I haven't really addressed that. So I'm going to start tagging some of the popular devices in the description of my videos. My personal favorite is the Garmin inReach Mini, but there's lots of options, and you can choose whichever one you think is best.
From my research, it seems like the Alaskan government performed most of the rescues surrounding bus 142, but I did find at least one that the Tri-Valley Volunteer Fire Department from Healy, Alaska, participated in. This is a tiny organization, and I'm not affiliated with them at all, but I have made a donation to support them. I'm trying to give back to these volunteer organizations, and so I'll link their PayPal in the description if you're interested in giving back to them as well.
So, I'd like to raise a question for all of you, and I'm afraid that this is a question without a clear answer, at least in my opinion. I'm wondering, is anybody responsible for the loss of life, the rescues, and the chaos that has come in the wake of Christopher McCandless's death? And if so, then who is responsible? I'm sure many of you probably thought of Chris McCandless himself as an answer to that question, and I'm trying to be unbiased here, but I don't know, I think it's a little far-fetched to blame him for everything that's happened after his death.
I definitely think there's a strong argument to be made that he was being reckless, damn near suicidal in his actions, but he was only acting for himself, right? Like, how was he supposed to know that his story was one day going to go on to reach and influence just so many people? I certainly don't think that was his intention. I think he was just doing what he wanted to do, even if it was probably pretty stupid.
I'm sure a lot of folks will also blame the authors, the filmmakers, and the content creators that have repeatedly told Christopher McCandless's story and perhaps maybe over-romanticized it. I find this argument a little bit more compelling than the last one, but at the end of the day, I do think that telling his story is perfectly acceptable, so long as it's being portrayed accurately.
And lastly, I think a lot of you are probably going to hold each individual themselves responsible for their own actions, and I'm always careful not to victim-blame in these videos, but I must admit that I personally have the most sympathy for this argument. At the end of the day, we all have to be responsible for ourselves. And again, I mean, uh, certainly mean no disrespect to any of the victims here, but just because Christopher McCandless's story may have inspired you, that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to go out there and try to live off the land yourself. And the same goes for trying to reach the bus, by the way.
And speaking of the bus, in 2020, the government finally put their foot down surrounding the incidences at bus 142 and the river leading up to it. On June 18th, the Alaska National Guard brought in a helicopter, and they airlifted the bus out of the wilderness. The commissioner for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources said, quote, "We encourage people to enjoy Alaska's wild areas safely, and we understand the hold this bus has had on the popular imagination. However, this is an abandoned and deteriorating vehicle that was requiring dangerous and costly rescue efforts, but more importantly, was costing some visitors their lives. I'm glad we found a safe, respectful, and economical solution to this situation." My understanding is that the bus is now being held at the Museum of the North on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.
And with that said, please leave a comment and let me know what you think about the aftermath of Christopher McCandless's story. I feel like there's no right answer to any of this stuff, and so I'm especially, yeah, curious about what you guys think of this one. And once again, I'd like to remind you to check out Holzkern and click the link in the description because this video would not have been possible without them.
And lastly, and definitely most importantly, please keep Claire Acorn, Dustin Self, Jonathan Croom, Verom M Mava, and Christopher McCandless, of course, in your hearts. May they all rest in peace, and thank you all so much for watching this video. I'll see you next week.