In One Ear: Aesthetic voyager
Published 6:00 am Thursday, December 11, 2025
In 2006, a film crew was in Astoria to film “Into the Wild,” directed by Sean Penn, the haunting story of hitchhiker/wanderer Christopher McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp), who made his way into the Alaska wilderness. Sadly unprepared, he met his death in 1992, at age 24, isolated in an old abandoned bus.
During McCandless’ travels he passed through Oregon, and Astoria was chosen for the Oregon scenes because of its “scenic aspects.” The filming mainly took place on Williamsport Road and in the Olney General Store.
The film was released in 2007, bringing even more attention to McCandless’ life, and death. People started making the dangerous pilgrimage to the bus, aka Bus 142, to pay homage to McCandless. Some died in the process.
In 2020, to stave off more bus pilgrims, and to preserve and restore the bus for eventual display, the bus was airlifted to the University of Alaska Museum of the North.
A recent story on Alaska Public News says it’s under a tarp at a storage facility in central Fairbanks. Money, or a lack thereof, is why the bus isn’t on display at the museum, which is trying to raise about $375,000 to finish the exhibit. Friends of Bus 142 is also fundraising for the cause.
The museum curator doesn’t have an “exact timeline” when the bus exhibit will be ready. Even so, the memory of McCandless, a self-described “aesthetic voyager whose home is the road,” lives on. (Photo: RareHistoricalPhotos/Christopher McCandless self-portrait)
