Alaskan Adventure 2008 Above: view from big brother Steve’s old cabin located along AK Hwy 1 South/Seward Hwy
McCandless Bus at Last!
Volume 1, Issue 1
After a two-day hike from the Stampede Trail and fording the Teklanika River, one arrives at the McCandless bus just east of the Sushana River!
Travel Dates: Monday, July 30th through Thursday, July 10, 2008
Sandy beams from the driver seat of the “magic bus” seen in the Sean Penn film, Into the Wild. In September of 1992, Chris McCandless was found dead in a bus in the bush country of central Alaska.
Inside this issue: McCandless Bus at last!
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Once in a Blue Moose
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In upcoming issues: Drag Queens at Mad
Aerial of McCandless bus beside the Sushana River
Myrna’s
Big brother flashes the “pinky”
Two Truths & a Lie
Sharon wins by a landslide
Almost too much fun at
Chilkoot Charlie’s
Portage Glacier Park Flight of the Red Balloon Pops!
of the brief life of Christopher McCandless. Later, Sean Penn produced and directed the film Into the Wild in 2007. The bus in question has subsequently become a memorial to McCandless, hosting a plaque left by the young man’s family as well as numerous other mementos left by visitors all motivated to come for a wide variety of reasons.
Most people who successfully visit the bus where Chris McCandless ‘lived off the Alaskan land’ for four months in 1992, do so in winter. Considering that getting there means traversing backcountry that would take a good hiker two days to walk, and crossing the Teklanika River. In winter, the river is low enough to cross, and snow machines do nicely navigating 30 miles of the Stampede Trail, heading due east from the George Parks Highway.
This writer, having seen both the film and read the book, was fascinated by the stories told of the people McCandless met and became intimate with during the two years leading up to his stay in Alaska’s bush country. His life was as colorful and interesting as any biography written about someone who lived to be 80 years or more. Had the story ended happily with “Alexander Supertramp” leaving the Alaskan interior and going home to his parents and sister, I would still have found those two years as compelling as I do now.
In summer though, one must hike in and cross the high, white waters of the Teklanika River. After unsuccessfully attempting to ford the river in a weakened state, McCandless died a short while later, leaving many to wonder what motivated this young man who seemingly had a bright future ahead of him, to decide to leave everything behind and commune with the harsh country of Alaska.
“Stop! Stop so I can get my camera!” I screamed to Steve as the moose came galloping directly our way!
The word among the locals in Anchorage was that the bus seen in the film Into the Wild was actually a carefully constructed replica that was made for the movie because the land where the bus was actually located was not at all conducive for a film crew to navigate. After doing a little research, Steve determined that the “movie” bus was located in Cantwell, about 211 miles north of Anchorage and about 44 miles south of Healy where the Stampeded Trail rambles east to the Sushana River and the real bus.
Which brings us to how I ended up on the magic bus . . .
In 1996. Jon Krakauer wrote and published Into the Wild to tell the story Warning . . . Objects may appear farther away than they really are
After researching the logistics and cost of getting to the abandoned bus in early July, it quickly became clear that I could neither afford to helicopter in or master the rigorous trek to get there. But, just as I was sure all was lost, big brother Steve came through with a brilliant idea.
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M-m-m-m-oose! There’s a Moose!! It was day two of the Great Alaskan Adventure and Steve, Sharon and I were driving along AK Hwy 1 South (Seward Hwy) to Portage to see the glaciers when suddenly, I saw a gigantic moose galloping across the Alaskan Highway. All I could get out in my excitement was, “M-m-m-m-oose! Mm-m-m-oose! Camera! Camera!” But, it was too late. The moose was gone.
Eight days later, it was time to fly back home to San Francisco. As Steve & Sharon were driving me to the airport, not far from the terminals, I saw coming straight towards us . . . an enormous galloping moose! “Stop! Stop so I can get my camera!” I screamed to Steve as the moose galloped ever closer . . .
Steve screeched to a stop and I jumped out, ran to the back of the pickup, got my camera out of my backpack, turned it on, and desperately tried to focus just as Mr. Moose trotted nonchalantly by, just four feet abreast of me . . . And just long enough to take his picture!
I was extremely bummed that I had missed such a tremendous photo opportunity. And there he goes!
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McCandless Bus continued . . .
The real story about the McCandless bus recreated by Alaskan artist Duke Russell for Sean Penn’s film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild And so, the three of us decided we would do some further digging to find out the exact location of the replica bus and then set off to find it. However, the only information I was able to find was that the vehicle was given as “payment” to the Native Village of Cantwell and was currently sitting in the yard of Gordon Carlson, the owner of CLI Construction and the president of the Native Village of Cantwell. With that little bit of information, some yummy sandwiches and cold drinks from Organic Oasis, we began a very long drive that would be ultimately worth every minute of the trek. When we finally arrived in Cantwell, we could tell immediately that Steve was completely right about this being a “one-horse” town. Its businesses stand on both sides of the George Parks Highway (Hwy 3), and can be counted on two hands. We then decided to stop at a gas station in the middle of the 1/8 mile stretch of ‘downtown’ Cantwell. While Sharon and I went to use the restrooms, Steve sauntered over to the “Wildflour Café” that seemed a lot more like a roadside stand than a place to sit and eat. Eyeing the Wildflour’s only product, cookies made by the 19ish looking young woman standing behind the window of the tiny hut-like structure, Steve asked her if she knew where Gordon Carlson lived or where the movie bus was located. “Oh that bus is in Healy!” she said, just as Sharon and I were coming back from the gas station. “You know,” she said as she leaned forward confidentially, “he died from that bus.” It was then that I realized that “Rosemary Kabbibbe” from the Knott’s Berry Farm’s commercial, the girl whose, “lights are on, but nobody is home,” had somehow managed to relocate to Alaska and set up shop as the Wildflour Café. Pulling Steve aside, Sharon and I adamantly urged Steve to ask someone else
the location of the bus. “Nah,” he said, “ let me ask her one more question.” Then he asked her if she knew where Gordon and Rachel Carlson lived. The young woman replied, “Yeah. Go about five miles down Denali Road, and his place is on the right.” Denali Road was about five miles south of Cantwell. Fearing we were being sent on a wild goose chase, Sharon and I said we should get a ‘second opinion.’ However, big brother was confidant that the instructions were sound, and since he was driving, we had little choice but to follow along and hope that they were both right.
We found the boulder and cautiously drove down the dirt driveway through property that sported a medium sized house next to the ’yard’ that housed broken vehicles, equipment and . . . The magic bus. And there it sat, in all its beauty and mystery, sitting silently in the grayness of the early afternoon. After knocking on the door and finding no one home, we happily explored and took photos of the very bus that Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, and other actors and movie crew members stood in, gazed out from, and filmed. It was a good day. Chris McCandless may have been underprepared and naïve about his ability to handle anything Mother Nature had to dole out . . . But I don’t believe that he was arrogant. He may have been idealistic, and he may have been a dreamer, but I don’t think he was on an ego trip, setting out to defy death and win. He simply wanted to be free, even if just for a little while, of society’s rules and limitations. And you know what? I’m okay with that.
20 miles later, after making several passes along the instructed route . . . Steve finally acknowledged that maybe the girl’s instructions were unreliable. And so it was that we stopped at a house where I spied a man standing in his yard that gave a friendly wave as we passed. “Hi,” I said to the man, “we’re looking for Gordon Carlson’s place; we heard that the bus used in the film Into the Wild, is there. Can you direct us there?”
When Sean Penn set out to make his epic movie "Into the Wild," he did something most movie producers don't do when making a film about Alaska: he filmed it in Alaska.
Duke Russell
The film crew bought a similar bus and hired Anchorage artist Duke Russell to work on it.
Movie bus
The film crew dragged the bus a couple miles off the George Parks Highway for the filming. They came back to shoot scenes on four occasions from the spring to the fall of 2006.
“Why sure,” he said, “I can tell you how to get to ‘Gordy’s’ place. Take Denali Road here back to Hwy 3 and turn right to go back to Cantwell. Gordy’s place is right off the road on the left. The entrance to his property is marked by a large boulder. You can’t miss it.” After heartily thanking the man, we raced back to Cantwell in pursuit of the bus.
Behind the scenes with the movie version of the “magic bus” Movie bus
To our utter surprise and subsequently, extreme annoyance, the Carlson place was exactly across the street from the Wildflour Café! It would seem that Kabbibbe was definitely alive and well and so appropriately and promptly, we renamed the not-so-quaint roadside Wildflour Café to the Twit Cookie Company.
The real bus
An old bus was left on the Stampede Trail about 40 years ago when a road was being built. In the summer of 1992, it became the home of young wanderer Chris McCandless
The Cantwell Native Tribe will get ownership of the prop bus used in the film. "Maybe a museum piece, maybe have a coffee stand where you have this in the background and sell t-shirts and books, whatever," Rachel Carlson said. Cantwell is about 40 miles to the south of Healy, where the Stampede Trail takes off.
First from left: Steve’s happy to have found the magic bus and poses proudly masking the sheepishness he feels for believing “twit cookie girl,” and setting off on a wild goose chase that girlfriend and sister were powerless to stop. Second from left: The “Magic Bus,” recreated by Duke Russell, is parked in Gordon Carlson’s yard in Cantwell, AK Third from left: Sandy stands contented in the doorway of the movie bus that Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, and other actors and film crew stood in and filmed Third from right: Steve & Sharon pose in front of the Hollywood version of the McCandless bus Second from left: Movie poster for Into the Wild; Emile Hirsch sits atop the replica bus First from right: Stripped of its movie-prop accessories, the Cantwell bus sits among other broken vehicles, equipment, and junk, seen only by a few who know of its existence and location
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