Charles looked over my shoulder and read. "I wish I could come in here and have an inspirational moment," he said. "I wish my life was Zenned out."
"‘Only time will tell how Chris McCandless’s life has affected mine,’" Kris read. She snorted and looked up. "It’s garbage! I mean, am I too cynical?"
We were. We were too cynical to read entry after entry from people looking for meaning in the life and death of a man who had rejected his family, mooched his way across the country and called himself "Alexander Supertramp" in the third person. I struggled to imagine the emotional currents that had carried people here to this bus, so far from their homes, to honor his memory. Later, a friend who had been born in Alaska and exiled to Maryland for five years tried to explain the overwhelming smallness and sameness of life on the suburban East Coast, where lawn care excites great interest; no wonder someone like Christopher McCandless seems adventurous and spiritual and inspiring, despite being dead.
Several visitors mentioned that "Into the Wild" had prompted their trips, but the book must have motivated nearly all of the pilgrimages, because why else would people attach any significance to the bus? They had come from Europe, California, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Utah, Ontario, North Carolina.
One man made the journey after reading a book review while sitting in a doctor’s office in Ithaca, N.Y. "It was then I knew the bus was a place I must visit," he wrote. "Christopher’s story changed the way I look at a lot of things, moreover it changed my perception of ‘need.’ I will be forever in your debt Alex! May you wander your travels in peace."
A fellow from Belgium wrote: "I’ve come from Europe to follow the footsteps of a ‘pilgrim,’ as says Krakauer, and I’d almost say a prophet!" He then criticized the materialistic attitude of Alaskans and urged them to read Tolstoy "instead of prostituting their country to tourism."
I laughed at that. The Belgian and the others had themselves turned the bus into a perverse tourist destination now so well known that it’s mentioned in The Milepost. They urged each other to protect the vehicle as a memorial, to leave things untouched. "His monument and tomb are a living truth whose flame will light the ‘way of dreams’ in other’s lives," someone wrote. It was not hard to imagine that before long visitors would be able to buy T-shirts saying "I Visited The Bus" or "I Survived Going Into the Wild." So many people seemed to have found their way out here that an espresso stand didn’t seem out of the question.
Astounded by page after page of such writings, we counted the number of people identified in the notebooks. More than 200 had trekked to the bus since McCandless’s death, and that didn’t account for those who passed by without comment. Think of that: More than 200 people, many as inexperienced as McCandless, had hiked or bicycled along the Stampede Trail to the bus — and every one of them had somehow managed to return safely.
Only one person even vaguely questioned this paradox: "Perhaps we shouldn’t romanticize or cananize (sic) him. . . . After all, Crane and I walked here in no time at all, so Chris wasn’t far from life. . . . not really." But then, perhaps unwilling to seem harsh, the writer added, "These questions are in vain. We shouldn’t try to climb into another’s mind, attempting to know what he thought or felt."
There's lots more at the link.
