The Untold Truth Of Into The Wild

In April 1992, when Chris McCandless wrote the phrase "Magic Bus" in his journal, he was not referring to the Magic School Bus. (Much as we would love to say otherwise, Miss Frizzle isn't real.) Instead, McCandless was referring to Bus 142, a rusty old construction bus that had been abandoned in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness (via GreenBelly). To McCandless, who had given up all his worldly possessions and had hitchhiked across the American countryside hoping to live off the land, Bus 142 must have seemed like a sign from the universe. As a result, the "Magic Bus" was where McCandless set up camp, and it was where he would ultimately die, because the 24-year-old was inexperienced and poorly-equipped to survive the harsh environment.

After his death, McCandless made national headlines. Jon Krakauer researched his adventures and published them in a book called "Into the Wild." Later, it was adapted into a movie of the same name, directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch as McCandless. Many critics consider the film to be one of the best movies about people surviving in the wilderness.

If you want to explore further, we've compiled the most fascinating stories behind the movie based on this stranger-than-fiction tale.

Almost all the cast members in "Into the Wild" portray real-life people. Obviously, McCandless's sister (played by Jena Malone) and parents (played by Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt) are real people. But the real Chris McCandless also met Jan Burres (Catherine Keener) and her boyfriend (played by Brian Dierker) — not once, but twice. Just like in the movie, Jan was reunited with McCandless after spotting his backpack in The Slabs (via The Joplin Globe). 

McCandless did indeed meet grain elevator operator Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn), and he really did send Westerberg a postcard (published in Oprah) right before his fateful trip into the wilderness. In fact, it is from this postcard that the movie draws its title. And if you recall the character at the beginning of the movie who drops McCandless off in Alaska and urged McCandless to call him back, that was a real person, too: a man named Jim Gallien.

In an interview with MovieWeb, Kristen Stewart explained, "My character [Tracy Tatro] is definitely based on a girl [that McCandless met and Sean Penn interviewed]," though she added that Penn took some creative liberties to make the character better fit his vision for the movie. Likewise, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook) is a real person, though Holbrook told NPR that he added his own interpretation of the character. According to A.V. Club, the only major characters who didn't have any real-life basis were the Danish tourists Sonja (Signe Egholm Olsen) and Mads (Thure Lindhardt).

"Into the Wild" is in many ways an uplifting movie that will inspire viewers to blaze new trails. But it's also a cautionary tale, since McCandless's refusal to accept help from anyone ultimately leads to his demise. Still, that doesn't dissuade hikers from around the globe from attempting to take the same path Chris McCandless took. Unfortunately, a few such hikers have died in the process.

For instance, a tourist from Belarus named Veranika Nikanava drowned while trying to cross the Teklanika River, the same river that McCandless crossed (via Reuters). Nikanava had been trying to reach Bus 142 when the fast-moving river carried her off. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Johnathan Croom wasn't anywhere near the spot where McCandless had been; Croom's body was found in the Oregon countryside. However, Croom was likely inspired by "Into the Wild," since the boy's father, David Croom, told Outside Online that his son had been fascinated by the movie before his death. David speculated that this was why his son went into the wilderness alone.

Journalist Eva Holland mused in an interview with CBC that these deaths would only encourage more tourists to try traveling out to Bus 142. "People like to feel like they're taking a risk," she said. "Sometimes this kind of thing can draw people in rather than push them away."

Although the original plan for "Into the Wild" was to base the production in Vancouver or Salt Lake City and shoot there, Sean Penn had something different in mind. Executive producer John Kelly told The Hollywood Reporter that Penn had decided, "We're going to go to South Dakota, we're going to go to Emory University (in Atlanta) — we're going to shoot these places the way they happened." Since McCandless's parents had recovered their son's camera, full of undeveloped photos of his trip, the filmmakers used those photos (along with Krakauer's book) as a basis for where they would shoot. The journey took Penn and his team to places like Carthage, South Dakota and the Salton Sea in California. "It just felt like the only way to make the movie," Penn told Men's Journal. By the time the film was finished, Penn had shot at 35 separate locations, according to Glide magazine.

However, there was one notable exception to Penn's goal of shooting where McCandless had been. Rather than filming at the actual location of Bus 142, Penn and his crew filmed 50 miles south in the town of Cantwell, because the place where McCandless died was too remote to send a whole film crew and Cantwell was arguably more picturesque. The crew recreated Bus 142 for the film by restoring an identical model they'd found in a junkyard.

The movie "Into the Wild" leaves no ambiguity surrounding McCandless's death: he ate poisonous wild potato seeds that made him too weak to gather food, so he starved. This theory came directly from Krakauer's book. For years there had been some serious debate that the book and the movie had gotten it wrong. However, after some additional research, Krakauer was able to conclude in a 2015 New Yorker article that his initial hypothesis had been right; he'd just gotten a few of the details wrong.

Initial research certainly pointed to the seeds as the culprit. After all, McCandless's journal (via Outside Online) said, "Extremely weak. Fault of pot[ato] seed." But after Krakauer's book had been published, chemist Thomas Clausen ran some additional tests on the seeds and decided there wasn't enough proof behind the theory. "I tore that plant apart," he told Men's Journal. "There were no toxins. No alkaloids. I'd eat it myself." According to The New Yorker, Krakauer collaborated with Avomeen Analytical Services to investigate Clausen's findings and confirmed there were no toxic alkaloids in the seeds. But maybe, Krakauer speculated, there was another kind of toxin. Sure enough, he discovered a toxic amino acid called L-canavanine that was present in the seeds and thus responsible for McCandless's death.

Therefore, the movie got it right — although the scenes where McCandless flips through his botany book and notices his mistake are technically inaccurate, since nobody knew at the time that the seeds could be poisonous.

When most people think of Chris McCandless, they think of him with reverence, and that is largely thanks to the image of him immortalized in the movie and the book. The movie portrays McCandless in a romantic light, though it does acknowledge his fatal flaw: refusing any help and deciding to "go it alone." However, not everyone shares this rosy view of the young man. In fact, many Alaskans view him as a newbie who bit off more than he could chew.

For instance, Alaskan journalist Craig Medred has described McCandless as "Alaska's most famous nobody." Meanwhile, park ranger Peter Christian wrote an essay (shared on the blog of travel memoirist Ken Ilgunas) that condemned McCandless's actions as "[not] even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic and inconsiderate." Men's Journal interviewed Butch Killian, one of the moose hunters who found McCandless dead in the wilderness. It turned out that Killian was only vaguely familiar with Jon Krakauer's book about McCandless, and he was surprised to learn that the book was so popular. He couldn't understand why folks placed McCandless on a pedestal. "If he's a hero," said Killian, "he's a dead hero."

Sean Penn waited almost 10 years to create "Into the Wild," so it's easy to understand why he'd be willing to bend a few rules to make sure the movie would finally happen. Still, it's certainly surprising that the director had so much sway that he managed to get permission to borrow somebody from jail for a day.

The person in question was Everett "Insane Wayne" Smith (called "Insane Cain" in the movie), a resident of The Slabs who attend the same country music concert as McCandless. Emile Hirsch explained that Penn had met Insane Wayne on his initial research trip to The Slabs and wanted to include Wayne in the movie. No doubt he was disappointed to learn on the day of shooting that Wayne had been arrested for domestic violence charges (per LA Weekly). Penn persuaded a local judge to temporarily release Wayne, just so he could film a cameo in the movie. According to Hirsch, "[Insane Wayne] showed up on that day in full handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit and sheriffs with shotguns. They briefly let him put on his costume and sing a song." Some 14 hours later, after the scene was filmed, Insane Wayne returned to jail.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.