McCandless gained a degree of fame after Jon Krakauer wrote a book about his journey, Into the Wild, in 1995. By 2002, the abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail where Christopher's body was found had become an adventure tourist destination. [2] A motion picture based on and named after the book will be directed by Sean Penn and released in 2007 or 2008. Ellis Paul wrote "The Ballad of Chris McCandless", a folk song memorializing his journey.
Some Alaskans have less positive views of McCandless than those who romanticize his fate. McCandless was unaware that a hand-operated tram crossed the river a quarter mile from the Stampede Trail, while a nearby shelter was stocked with emergency supplies. Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote:
"I am exposed continually to what I will call the “McCandless Phenomenon.” People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically nonexistent... When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament... Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide."
[3] Judith Kleinfeld wrote in an article entitled "McCandless: Hero or dumb jerk?" in the Anchorage Daily News, that "many Alaskans react with rage to [McCandless'] stupidity. You'd have to be a complete idiot, they say, to die of starvation in summer 20 miles off the Parks Highway." [4]
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