The bus has been kept indoors at the University of Alaska. "Now, the Museum of the North plans to put the bus into a free 24/7 outdoor display in the woods behind the building... along with an indoor exhibition featuring items from McCandless and art inspired by his journey."
ADDED: Before the bus was kept indoors, it was out in the wild where McCandless left it, and it became a dangerous tourist attraction. I blogged about that here, with video, 6 years ago. An official explained:
"We encourage people to enjoy Alaska’s wild areas safely, and we understand the hold this bus has had on the popular imagination. However, this is an abandoned and deteriorating vehicle that was requiring dangerous and costly rescue efforts, but more importantly, was costing some visitors their lives. I’m glad we found a safe, respectful and economical solution to this situation."
But something was lost, and now they're trying to get it back.
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44 comments:
Murkowski earmark grift ?
I hadn't heard of the book or the movie, and I may purchase the former.
Should the upcoming exhibit be funded using federal dollars? That's a reasonable question. We do a lot of things at the federal level that I think more appropriately belongs at a more local, state or regional (through partnerships) level.
I'm not sure whether it's the story or the funding that prompted Althouse's post.
…not as ridiculous as most of the classic style earmarks that have no tangible result except improvement in the quality of constituents personal finances. One could argue the story makes the bus Smithsonian worthy but impracticable comes to mind. If it’s the money: when it has been confirmed entitlement fraud is more than a trillion per year grab some perspective…
Everything costs more in Alaska. Pump federal money into it and you just worsen the local inflation. Especially ironic since Alaska is a rentier state that pumps money out of the ground. CC, JSM
SPOILER ALERT!!! Too late for me (and likely for you) but anyone intending to read the book or see the movie ought not watch that video.
The money is for power, lights, and security due to the wildlife that roams around and the exhibit will be open 24/7. It’s a wild bus finally released into the wild.
I remember reading Krakauer’s book years ago. It was a rather depressing story of a man with a weak grip on reality winding up in a place where reality refuses to be ignored, and suffering the consequences. That he was some kind of inspirational figure and his bus should be made a shrine is preposterous. Many of the people living on the streets today would have stories just as sad, and just as meaningless.
The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to never ever land
CC, JSM
I've read the book. McCandless was an emotionally disturbed young man who had absolutely no idea of how to live in the wild. There is nothing to memorialize about him or the bus he died in because of his own stupidity.
Read the book a long time ago. Very good book about an absolute idiot. There is no conceivable justification for spending $300k of OUR money to turn a junk bus into some kind of monument.
If it gets Murkowski to vote aye on the SAVE Act, I’m all for it.
I have a feeling nature's going to win this next round, too. Just another Death Cult celebratory monument going up. Honestly..... who would think this is a good idea?
…innit funny how every time the important Republican stuff comes up gosh darn it we just don’t have the votes, we gotta protect Murkowsi and Collins and that guy on his way out hates Trump and yah it isn’t like last time when we were two shy to get to one short now we’re at four shy to get to one short and next time it will be x shy to come up one short…but hey we gotta protect them except they’ve been there for twenty four years and thirty years see what a good job we’re doing?!?
WHY?
how what purpose?
WHAT are they trying to incourage?
..:maybe they can make it an even million if they add a grizzly man display?
I think it is cool that the NYT had a story about alaska then Ann followed an ad link to an Alaskan news site.
Can we throw in another $300k and preserve the boat they just rescued that 15 year-old kid from ? Seems pretty much the same deal.
When you're lost in the wild
and scared as a child
and death looks you bang in the eye.
just draw on your grit
it's damn easy to quit
it's the keeping on living that's hard
“"Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway;
From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day;
Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come,
Till he swept like a turbid torrent, and after him swept — the scum.
The pallid pimp of the dead-line, the enervate of the pen,
One by one I weeded them out, for all that I sought was — Men.
One by one I dismayed them, frighting them sore with my glooms;
One by one I betrayed them unto my manifold dooms.
Drowned them like rats in my rivers, starved them like curs on my plains,
Rotted the flesh that was left them, poisoned the blood in their veins;
Burst with my winter upon them, searing forever their sight,
Lashed them with fungus-white faces, whimpering wild in the night;”
And lots more cheerful stuff in Robert Service’s The Law of the Yukon. Apparently McCandless read Jack London; he might have been better off with more Service.
I would applaud the preserving of Ms. Frizzle's school bus, but this guy's? Not.
Alex, I’ll take “Most Stupid Thing in History “ for $1000.
I did like the movie. It said something about a certain kind of young American. Not sure federal money should be spent on stuff like this. If the state thinks it's important, Alaska can pay for it.
It's a great practical example of a cautionary tale. Of course, you cowards whom have never ventured into the unknown don't like it.
Similar to Donner Memorial State Park in California, and a lesson to always travel with a buddy, a tasty little buddy.
I can see no reason why we might need a memorial to Chris McCandless.
That said, McCandless was not a loser (Yes, I know, he killed himself...). In fact, he was rather accomplished, if I recall correctly. McCandless was a dreamer, a visionary, a stargazer...and, of course, a fool -- all very harmless things (Yes, except to himself...can we dispense with that now and go on?).
When I read his story in "Into The Wild" the singular thought that kept popping into my mind was something I've thought about no one else in my life: he was a special being, one not really made for this earth. Which is not to idealize him or glorify him. Hardly. It simply seemed that that is what he was. Some who read the book, who weren't immediately sifting the story through the "What an idiot this guy was" filter and could see no more than that, might understand what I'm talking about.
I was sorry to see him go but he was destined to go, I think. He was, to put it minimally and simplistically, an eccentric. I've always thought that God put eccentrics on this earth for the rest of us to savor, and I do that whenever I meet one. I savored the hell out of Chris McCandless.
I was not familiar with the back story. OK, it is interesting. And, I suppose a tiny sliver of Alaskan history. Not, tell me why this is worthy of federal funding?
We seem to have reached a point where anything that anyone finds worthwhile should be funded by us all.
We B Doomed.
That bus is an extremely sad testament to the fatal confusion of one young man. Who, with just a few more woodsman skills, could still have saved his life. His ignorance and confusion were tragic for him and his family and that bus is only a painful reminder of his profound errors. Junk it totally.
I did not savor the hell out of Chris McCandless. I didn't think he was an idiot either (although since his aim was to live in the woods, a bit more attention to basic human nutrition - I'm thinking of the bag of white rice that was the only comestible he brought with him - and plant identification would not have been amiss). Eccentric? Sure. And a grown man and therefore had every right to go try to do what he went and tried to do, especially since he didn't expect anyone to risk their own lives to rescue him.
My problem was with the book, which did, in my opinion, valorize him; I didn't think Krakauer did a good job at presenting him as a cautionary tale, but rather presented him as an example worth emulating, only (one hopes) better. How many people have been inspired to try something like what McCandless did because of that book, and *have* needed rescue that involved others risking their lives?
I mean, I guess that's what rescuers do, and presumably they get something out of it, so maybe I shouldn't assume they resent being called out again and again to get ill-prepared people out of jams of their own making.
Jamie said...
I did not savor the hell out of Chris McCandless. I didn't think he was an idiot either (although since his aim was to live in the woods, a bit more attention to basic human nutrition - I'm thinking of the bag of white rice that was the only comestible he brought with him - and plant identification would not have been amiss). Eccentric? Sure.
Jamie. Lovely, beautiful Jamie.
When the gold rush in the Klondike began it was chaos and people coming up to dig for gold and wound up starving. Canada made a law that no one would be allowed to cross the boarder without at least a ton of supplies. Dreid fruit and lard being two things they looked for.
The boy was a romantic. Not a survivor. He wasn't prepared.
Oh. And when given the choice of surviving the winter in a metal container or a hole in the ground covered in branches and leaves and dirt, choose the hole in the ground.
So...a ma walked into the wilderness and died of stupidity...so they are building a museum of stupidity to protect potential Darwin Award winners from following him?
I read up on Chris McCandeless. He was a brilliant student at Emory. He gave away $240,000 and moved to Alaska.
I then found a YouTube video of the last two people to visit the site before the bus was moved.
These two guys had to inflate a kayak and paddle down 10 miles to get to the Stampede Trail. If they tipped in that fast and cold water, good chance of dying.
I haven't watched the movie or read the book (and I won't), but didn't this guy know that the river would rise?
He wasn't that smart.
Speaking of not being that smart, my opponent has appealed her loss to the NE S. Ct. She is supposedly a member of MENSA.
This one will contest has generated three appeals. In both trials, I defeated female lawyers who are members of MENSA.
Begley is looking to be 3-0 against MENSA.
Ice Nine: " I've always thought that God put eccentrics on this earth for the rest of us to savor, and I do that whenever I meet one. "
I hear you and understand. I've known a few like McCandless in my life, and I did really enjoy them most of the time, but they were also often a pain in the ass by insisting on screwing things up and needing to be rescued over and over. None ever grew out of it, and they have all long passed. I miss them, because you tend to remember the good stuff. One thing they did for me was to get me to try things I likely would not have done on my own. They gave me what seemed like courage, but it was really just ignoring the risks, which they had a passion for.
Not an earmark. A grant from The Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Trump is trying to shut down the whole operation. As of now a court has stopped him, but the authorizing law comes up for re-approval this year. (I think he fired the entire staff!)
And absolute wastes of public money like this prove he is right.
“I read up on Chris McCandeless. He was a brilliant student at Emory. He gave away $240,000 and moved to Alaska.”
$24,000. He wasn’t *that* crazy.
Why are so many people infatuated with stupidity?
It's a memorial to an idiot.
FWIW, I've read the Krakauer book and a bunch of other stuff on McCandless. I thought he was fair to the young man. I imagine some young people (and misguided older people) would find the story inspirational in some sense, but my impression was that Krakauer was writing a very cautionary story. McCandless did fairly well living off the land (so to speak), at least in the Lower 48 where civilization was always fairly close by. Alaska's a whole different story, and for *that*, he was naively unprepared. Still, he did manage to kill a small moose (which some locals wrongly identified as a caribou), but didn't know how to preserve the meat.
I think the bus is worth preserving, m'self. I can't imagine there isn't private money out there for it though.
Sometimes you don’t have much to go with, so you have to try your best with what you’ve got.
My first thought was that this is a waste of money, but a lot of money has been spent rescuing "pilgrims", as the rangers call them, so maybe this will end up saving money in the long run.
So they are making a monument to a stupid man who made a fatal mistake? And these groupie hordes just come and ooohhhh aaaahhhh....
I'm a Bradford Angier gal, myself.
I'm not a fan of Kristen Stewart, but in that movie she was to die for.
Watching a bunch of great actors was much more enjoyable than just reading Krakauer’s description of what happened. And so many people just have to view it through their own political lens, rather than as an interesting story about an eccentric man.
I think my friend and old co-worker directed the conservation of the bus.
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