Student: Rocio Valdez

Professor: Silvio Bode

I.S.P.I 4020 “San Roque” - Language III.

Summary chapters 1-5.

“Into the Wild” is the story of Christopher McCandless, also known as Alexander
Supertramp, and his multiple adventures trying to find a new life.
The story began with a letter in where Alex, which is the main character, told his
friend Wayne that he just arrived to Fairbanks, Alaska. The next we read in the book is that
man called Jim Gallien spotted Alexander standing in the snow beside the road with his
thumb raised up. To him, Alex didn’t seem a bad boy though he had a riffle in his backpack.
Therefore, Jim invited the young man to climb into his truck. In the vehicle alex introduced
himself and admitted wanting a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park. The truck
driver agreed on drop him wherever he wanted and noticed that Alex didn’t had much
things as he would expect for a long trip like that.
As they were on the road, Jim wondered whether Alex was one of those dreamers
that think they could go to Alaska to live a new life and live off from the land. Consequently,
Jim Gallien explained that it was not like in magazines and that life there was rough, the
hunting was not easy and there were many bears.
After talking for a while, Alex admitted having only a ten-pound bag of rice in his
backpack, a rifle in case he needed to kill any animal and state road map. Just that.
While taking a look at the map, Jim notices that Alex planned to go to Mt.McKinley,
and to go to that place they needed to take Stampede Trail, a road which seldom did people
travel through. Gallien suggested not going there but the boy seemed confident about his
decision.
Before leaving, the hitchhiker offered Jim all his belongings, that were his watch, his
comb and a couple dollars. The old man was so afraid of what could happen to Alex that he
gave him his work boots and his phone number just in case. After that, the truck driver took
a photo of Alex and both disappeared from the other’s life for ever.
 Stampede Trail was not finished, only about fifty miles of road were eventually built.
The construction company that worked on the road, Yutan Construction, bought three
junked buses so as to provide the workers a place to leave their belongings. In the end, two
buses were hauled and the third was left about halfway put the trail to serve as a refugee for
hunters and trappers.
On September 6, 1992 three friends called Ken Thompson, Gordon Samel and Ferdie
Swanson set out stalking moose. When they got there the three men found a girl and a boy
from Anchorage standing fifty feet away from the abandoned bus, the bus 142. The
Anchorage couple looked scared and felt there was a bad smell from inside the bus. Hence,
one of the men inspected the dilapidated vehicle and realised there was a note in the door.
In that piece of paper Chris McCandless asked for help and explained he was injured near
death. There was also Chris’s rifle and his stuff that were some torn jeans, cooking utensils
and an expensive backpack.
Samel was the brave one who notices there was a sleeping bag with something or
someone in it. Eventually, when they checked they realised it was a corpse. Chris
McCandless’s dead body.
After this, a coal miner appeared in scene and suggested calling the Alaska State
Troopers. The next thing that happened was that a police helicopter touched down beside
the bus to take McCandless’s corpse to Anchorage. His body was so badly decomposed that
it was not possible to determine when Alex died.

But before tragedy happen, Alex lived a life of adventures traveling from one city to
another. As I wrote at the beginning of the summary, Christopher McCandless wanted a new
life. He was so tired of his privileged reality that decided to follow his principles and
abandon everything. Inspired by Leo Tolstoy, Alex left his city and his family after his
graduation. This young man graduated from Emory University on May 12, 1990. That
weekend he informed his family he would disappear for a while. At first, nobody believed
him but then when they stopped hearing something from him they realised it was real.
Before leave once and for all, he sent his parents a copy of his final grades and changed his
name to Alexander Supertramp so as to symbolize the complete break up from his previous
life.
 On the afternoon of September 10, while driving out of Cut Bank, a man called
Wesley Westerberg picked up a young man, this man was Alex. According to Wesley,
Alexander looked hungry and it was because Alex was run out of money. After talking for a
minutes, the hitchhiker informed Westerberg that his destination was Saco Hot Spring.
When it was time for Alex to leave, Wesley offered the young man to come with him
to Sunburst and spend the night at the trailer. They remained together for three days until
Westberger gave McCandless employment at a grain elevator and rented him a cheap room
in one of the two houses he owned. The old man noticed that Alex was the hardest worker
he’d ever seen plus he was intelligent and a man who read a lot and used big words. In fact,
Alex was an upper-middle-class man who was raised in Virginia. His father Walt worked for
the NASA as an aerospace engineer.
McCandless found another family way much different from his own in Westerberg
and his employees. Wesley was a man of many business. However, one of his talents got him
into troubles with the law. Once, he was arrested by the FBI for selling “black boxes” which
were illegally unscramble satellite-television transmission.

In October 1990, more than 3 months after Chris left Atlanta, a member of the
National Park Service called Bud Walsh found McCandless’s old yellow Datsun without its
license plates. Moreover, Walsh and the troop found inside the car other stuff like a Giannini
guitar, almost $5 dollars, 25 pounds of rice and the keys of the vehicle. They left the car right
where it was just in case, but five days later they returned and took the old car to the
National Park Service maintenance. For over 3 years they used that car to make undercover
drug buys that led to numerous arrests.
The story of how that car got there is quite complicated. On July 6, McCandless
arrived in Lake Mead National Recreation Area and set up camp beside the lake. All of a
sudden, it started to rain very hard and the brown water came rushing down from the high
country. Needless to say that he could only save his tent and some belongings. Fortunate the
flood didn’t have enough intensity to move the car. The engine got wet though.
As he couldn’t start the car, the decided to walk. At some point, he thought he could
notify the authorities about what happened but then he abandoned that idea because they
would do many questions. Hence, he decided to abandon the Datsun and continue his
journey by foot. Alex hid the car and buried some things he might one day want to recover,
like for example his Winchester deer-hunting rifle.
The young boy traveled through the West for the following 2 months and visited
places like Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe. At the end of July he met a man called Crazy Ernie
who gave him a lift and offered Alex job for 11 days until McCandless resumed his travels. A
forty-one-year-old rubber tramp called Jan Burres pick him up near the town of Orick.
According to her, Alex had a book about plants with him and he used it to pick berries and
collecting them. Shorty before meeting Jan Burres and her husband Bob, McCandless had
been ticketed for hitchhiking near Willow Creek and he had no better idea than give his
parents’ address information. Therefore, Walt and Billie knew he was alive but didn’t know
where so they decided to pay for a private investigator to find him. Nevertheless, Peter
Kalitka who was the private investigator couldn’t find him.
He continued travel and finally arrived to Cut Banks where he met Wesley until
Westerberg was put into jail and winter season came. Due to this, he had to move to
warmer places like Arizona, the Gulf of California, Morelos Dam and the Mexican Border. He
even entered to Mexico but returned quickly due to lack of papers. Then he stopped in Los
Angeles, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.

Alexander spent July and August on the Oregon Coast, everyday closer to Alaska, and
by October he reached Bullhead City in Arizona. Here he spent the most time until he went
to Alaska, he spent almost two months. He thought to settle down there during winter and
to get a job. Eventually, he found a job as a cook at McDonalds but he ended up quitting
because of some bad experiences he had there. When he applied for the job he gave his real
name Christopher McCandless. One of the main problems he had at McDonalds was that
worked like in slow motion, he took his time, another problem was the absence of a place to
take a shower. People used to complain about him not taking a shower.
During his first weeks in Bullhead he slept in a tent in the desert at the edge of the
town. Until a man called Charlie caught him shaving at a restroom and offered Alex to stay
with him at one of his lended trailers. Charlie suggested that probably because he noticed
the young man had no home.
Charlie, like many other people, agreed on the man being a nice person but kind of
quiet. A person who read a lot, specially Alaskan Jack London. In fact, Chris talked about
going to Alaska because of him. In a letter he let Jan Burres and bob know where he was
staying. After receiving that letter, the couple got ready for a visit. When they arrived to
Bullhead City they easily found Chris’s tent and after that, they took him to Niland where Jan
and Bob where staying.
According to Jan Burres, and many other people, Christopher read a lot. Specially the
classics: Dickens, H.GW Wells, Mark Twain, Jack London. He wanted to live the same
adventures Jack London wrote in his books, stories that were actually fiction.
The Sunday before McCandless left Niland he was watching an NFL playoff game.
When Jan noticed this, she asked whether Christ was from the D.C area and he said yes. That
was the only thing Chris told to that couple during his entire stay.
Before leaving once and for all, he went to McDonalds to receive his last paycheck.
Jan Burres offered Chris some money and a couple of Swiss knives, Chris declined the offer
of the money but took the knives and some warm clothes. This was the last thing they ever
heard from Christopher McCandless.