Christopher Johnson McCandless (Alexander Supertramp) / February 12, 1968 - August 18, 1992

1. Alex SuperTramp: I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.

2. Alex SuperTramp: I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth.

3. Alex SuperTramp: Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.

4. Alex SuperTramp: I'm supertramp. (looks @ apple) & : and you're super apple!

5. Alex SuperTramp: If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.

6. Alex SuperTramp: The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences.

7. Alex SuperTramp: What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?

8. Alex SuperTramp: 12 years? Twelve years - to paddle down a river?

9. Alex SuperTramp: I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.

10. Alex SuperTramp: Mr. Franz I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.

11. Alex SuperTramp: When you want something in life, you just gotta reach out and grab it.

12. Alex SuperTramp: If I wanted to paddle down the river, where's the best place to launch out of?

13. Alex SuperTramp: [written into book] Happiness only real when shared.

14. Alex SuperTramp: You are the apple of my eye.

15. Alex SuperTramp: You don't need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us.

16. Alex SuperTramp: Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.

17. Alex SuperTramp: The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.

18. Alex SuperTramp: The freedom and simple beauty is too good to pass up...

19. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; / There is a rapture on the lonely shore; / There is society, where none intrudes, / By the deep sea, and music in its roar; / I love not man the less, but Nature more... / - Lord Byron

20. Alex SuperTramp: What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?

21. Two weeks after Chris's death, moose hunters discovered his body in the bus.

22. On September 19, 1992, Carine McCandless flew with her brother's ashes from Alaska to the eastern seaboard. She carried them with her on the plane... in her backpack.

23. The filmmakers thank Jon Krakauer for his guidance and gratefully acknowledge Walt, Billie, Carine and the entire McCandless family for their brave support in the making of this film.

24. Ron Franz: What does the "N" stand for? Alex SuperTramp: North. Ron Franz: Alaska?

25. Alex SuperTramp: It should not be denied that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations. Absolute freedom. And the road has always led west.

26. Alex SuperTramp: You are really good. I mean, you're like, a hundred thousand times better than like any apple I've ever had. I'm not Superman, I'm Supertramp and you're super apple. You're so tasty, you're so organic, so natural. You are the apple of my eye, ha!

27. Carine McCandless: The year Chris graduated high school, he bought the Datsun used and drove it cross-country. He stayed away most of the summer. As soon as I heard he was home, I ran into his room to talk to him. In California, he'd looked up some old family friends. He discovered that our parents' stories of how they fell in love and got married were calculated lies masking an ugly truth. When they met, Dad was already married. And even after Chris was born, Dad had had another son with his first wife, Marcia, to whom he was still legally married. This fact suddenly redefined Chris and me as bastard children. Dad's arrogance made him conveniently oblivious to the pain he caused. And Mom, in the shame and embarassment of a young mistress, became his accomplice in deceit. The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that a fine crystal glass had to be cared for or it may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they did not seem to know or care that their course of secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of his other son was, for Chris, a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turn, like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow, suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris' sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence, as well.