Chris McCandless – Into The Wild

Memorial Foundation

After Christopher Johnson McCandless passed away in August 1992, his parents, Billie and Walt McCandless, created a charitable trust called the Christopher Johnson McCandless Memorial Fund whose purpose was to distribute assets to charities and individuals in Christopher’s memory. From 1992 until the present, Christopher’s parents have managed and distributed the assets in the memorial fund and the successive Foundation (2006) without personal benefit.

The assets of the Fund known as Chris’s Purpose were minimal before it began to receive book royalties in 1996 from Jon’s book, “Into the Wild.” Initially, Chris’s parents believed the fund’s limited assets, primarily from magazine and newspaper use of Chris’s story and select pictures from the 100’s of self-photos he had taken on his journey, would quickly be exhausted.



But this was not to be, as the story of Chris’s journey, researched and told by Jon, began to gather momentum. Surprisingly and consistently, when funds were distributed to a needy cause, a book royalty check for an amount greater than the gift would soon arrive. Chris’s Purpose could just as easily be called God’s Purpose.

The Foundation received funds, in terms of a one time contract, from the commission of the Into The Wild movie. The foundation is also soon to release the book ‘Chris’s Journey Through His Eyes. It will contain Chris’s pictures as he took off on his adventures. As the foundation describes the book – “The camera provides an intimate glimpse into his soul and a view of his world as it unfolded through his eyes. This photo journal renders a heartbeat to Chris’s journey in the time sequence, tempo and rhythm as it happened. You can look in reverse, essentially backward from the scenes he captured and read his mind, feel his pulse and look into his soul as he discovered new vistas and people.”

This book is called Back to the Wild.

P. O. Box 66059, Virginia Beach, VA 23466 U.S.A

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