Eva Holland: Alaska’s Teklanika River runs fast and cold. One chilly, drizzly day in early September, I stood on its eastern bank and watched two young hikers strip down to boxer shorts and sneakers, stuff their clothes into drybags and then into backpacks, and attempt to cross. Three more hikers stoked a small fire a few feet away, in case their friends fell in and needed to warm up fast; the plan was for two members of the group to tackle the river first, with the other three following if the first pair succeeded.
Scott Wilkerson settled his pack on his back. Minutes earlier, when the 22-year-old had agreed to go first, he’d joked, “I volunteer as tribute!” Now he turned to me and deadpanned, “I have a good feeling about this.”
I’d traveled to Alaska because I was interested in the so-called “McCandless pilgrims” – people, mostly in their teens and 20s, who came from around the world to hike to the abandoned bus where Christopher McCandless died.
McCandless’ story had first been told in a January 1993 Outside magazine article by Jon Krakauer, “Death of an Innocent.” Three years later, Krakauer’s book-length account, Into the Wild, was published and became a bestseller. The 2007 movie version, directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch, brought the story mainstream movie house fame. In the years since, a growing number of hikers inspired by McCandless’ free-spirited idealism have made the journey to Alaska in search of the famous bus. Fairbanks City Transit System Bus #142 has become a shrine, its rusting shell etched with motivational phrases left by visitors. But the pilgrimage is risky. One hiker died while crossing the Teklanika in 2010, and dozens more – 12 in the summer of 2013 alone – have become lost, hurt or stranded by the rising river and have needed to be rescued by local authorities.
I wanted to find out what kept the pilgrims coming – more than 100 every year, by one local’s estimation – despite the risks. I wanted to see the terrain for myself. And I wanted to hear what the locals thought of the phenomenon. But what I hadn’t bargained for was learning firsthand just how treacherous the pilgrimage could be.
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