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Into the Wild
by Jon Krakauer
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In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash.…
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"MB: I think the book—be it the author Jon Krakauer or its subject Christopher Johnson McCandless—was a driving theme in my mind while I was shooting these surfers. They have a kind of bohemian quality about them and some of them like to live off-grid, abandoning their connection to the outside world for periods of time. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter These kids are not running away from society as Christopher was but they are definitely abandoning the pressures of a 9 to 5 job existence for a way of life where living for the sea comes first – waking up in their vans on the road with a different view each day and traveling up and down the coast of California to chase the best waves. “A young artist can have nothing and almost live on the street but can feel rich and happy inside.” There was a group of skaters that ended up parking outside my place in Venice Beach and I became friends with them. Their story is that they were fascinated by the film adaptation of Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, and it inspired them to leave Connecticut and travel cross country in their bus to live out their adventures. Their story and the title Into The Wild just stick in my head."