This infamous bus had a grisly history. Then tourists made things worse

I have mixed emotions seeing a dilapidated 1940s-era bus metres below me in a holding room. In some parts, the bus’s patchy yellow-and-white corroded roof is held together by grey gaffer tape. Its rectangular windows are devoid of glass, and jagged bullet holes puncture its faded green-metal shell. While I wanted to view it, I didn’t realise how facing grim aspects of the bus’s checkered history would leave me feeling stirred and saddened.

Bus 142, better known as the “Magic Bus” or “Into the Wild” bus, was where hiker Christopher McCandless died.Credit: UAF/Amy Chaussé

I’m at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, which has become the final stop and resting place for Bus 142, better known as the “Magic Bus” or “Into the Wild” bus. The Fairbanks city bus was abandoned in Alaska’s back country near Denali National Park & Preserve in 1961 and used as a makeshift emergency shelter for local hunters and adventurers along the Stampede Trail, 40 kilometres from the closest town, Healy.

Emile Hirsch as McCandless in a scene from Into the Wild.

The bus was infamously occupied by Virginian hiker Christopher McCandless, who died on board in 1992. The 24-year-old’s diary documenting his final days of being stranded and facing starvation was discovered alongside his body. His gripping words were chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book Into The Wild and adapted into a 2007 film by Sean Penn.

With Into the Wild becoming mainstream, so did the desire for tourists to follow in McCandless’ footsteps.

“Instead of Alaskans who knew the territory and were prepared for back-country survival, the hikers along the trail were, more and more, unseasoned visitors from outside Alaska,” the museum’s senior collections manager, Angela Linn, says.

The Alaska National Guard flies the bus out of the wild in 2020.Credit: AP

With two deaths and multiple costly search and rescue missions conducted, the bus was flown out by the Alaska Army National Guard in 2020. Linn says locals welcomed its removal.

“The statistics really undersell the burden of the bus. I think the state eventually classified it as an attractive nuisance.”

Since the bus made its decades-overdue return to its city of departure, it has been undergoing conservation efforts. It will feature in a new exhibit scheduled to open in late 2025.

“Visitors will hear first-person experiences from Alaskans, pilgrims who visited the bus, reporters who’ve covered the McCandless story from the very beginning, and more,” Linn says.

Work to restore the bus.Credit: UAMN/Roger Topp

While the bus will be outside, surrounded by boreal forest, the exhibit will include an indoor interpretive centre combining various stories and artefacts from the bus, a multimedia exhibit featuring historical photos and films, and contemporary audio and video recordings. The exhibit’s Christopher Johnson McCandless archival collection includes five items owned by the late adventurer: a belt, a pocketknife, a camera, a jar with mica flakes, and a pocket watch.

The exhibit will go beyond chronicling the bus, spotlighting Alaska’s indigenous history dating back 14,000 years and incorporating the forest.

“Our goal is to allow visitors the opportunity to separate themselves from the urban setting of the museum and take some time to observe the land,” Linn says.

“To appreciate the quiet and the beauty of interior Alaska, which sustained Indigenous peoples for generations because of the knowledge passed through families. It’s precisely that knowledge that allows people to safely travel in our wild places.”

The trail that will lead to the exhibition site.Credit: UAMN/Angela Linn

Alongside McCandless, the exhibit will draw attention to missing and murdered Indigenous people, after consultation with the Fairbanks community, whose stories are often never told.

“This is our attempt to acknowledge that concern and to include them in our presentation of a site of memory.”

Linn says conversations with people connected to the bus helped guide the exhibit to move beyond sadness and promote the positive impacts of spending time in nature to improve emotional wellbeing.

“We want to remind visitors about the importance of promoting mental health and how taking time in the forests around the world can be a step towards managing everyday stresses and generational traumas that are being talked about more in our post-pandemic world,” she says.

“We want our visitors to use the exhibit to find their own meaning in the bus and what it has symbolised for many around the world and in our own community.”

DETAILS

Visit
Admission to the University of Alaska Museum of the North is $US20 ($32) for adults. The museum is open 9am-5.30pm daily. The new exhibit is planned to open later this year. See uaf.edu/museum

Stay
Rooms at Alaska Heritage House cost from $US378 ($605). See alaskaheritagehouse.com

The writer was a guest of Explore Fairbanks.