Reviews…
Finding Everett Ruess
ARTIST, writer, traveller, explorer. Everett Ruess was all of these. He was also an inspiration to other writers who tried to make sense of his life and someone around whom something like a cult sprang up.
I don’t know if cult is the right word, however David Roberts uses the term in his 2012 book, Finding Everett Ruess. It formed after Everett disappeared in the desert of south western USA in 1934. He is still the subject of searchers, researchers and wishful thinkers. He is still an inspiration to the footloose, the adventurous, the seekers of solitude in harsh environments.
In the introduction to the book, adventure writer John Krakauer also uses the cult-word. He likens Everett to Chris McCandless, the young adventurer whose self-propelled journeys around America ended with his death in Alaska. John wrote about Chris in his 1996 book, Into the Wild. Later, a film was made.
Krakauer’s book more or less created Chris McCandles as a kind of folk hero. He symbolised that streak in American culture (and in Australian culture) that manifests as the footloose, open ended life of the wanderer. It is a character-type that appeals to the like-minded and acts as a warning to the socially conformist. It symbols both personal freedom to roam to explore, to experience wild places and life and to the uncertainties that come when you wander too far from the straight path of career, family and the social norm. I think Krakauer right to liken Everett Ruess to Chris McCandles for they seemed to share those values of personal freedom.
Others likened Everett to American nature and wilderness writers such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. Who knows? Had he lived he might have risen to similar literary heights.
How many were lured into the wild lands by the landscape and their sense of adventure but didn’t leave a journal of their wanderings?
Setting out
Everett was almost 21 when he set off with two pack-Burros on his final, lone expedition into the desert he loved. That fateful journey was preceded by two other long, lone journeys and some of shorter duration. His search was for what he called ‘beauty’ and the cliff structures left by Indians like the Anasazi who once called the desert home.
David Roberts reconstructs Everett’s journeys from letters he sent to family and friends because some of the diaries Everett kept were lost. He also recounts the search for Everett by his family and others. Some of those looked promising but turned out to be dead ends.
He had more than a little in common with the iconoclastic writer, desert traveller and wilderness defender, Edward Abbey
Everett aimed to become a travelling artist who would support himself by sales of his artwork depicting the desert wilderness. That proved more difficult than he imagined. His financial support was his family who supplied him with regular remittances.
Seekers of solitude and beauty
David Roberts book on the mystery of Everett Ruess is one of a number published over the years. Had Everett lived he might have become a noted wilderness artist and nature writer. He had more than a little in common with the iconoclastic writer, desert traveller and defender of the wilderness, Edward Abbey. Like Abbey, he was at home in the country’s wild places. Like Abbey, those wild places are his final resting place (after Abbey died his close friends buried him in a secret place in the desert).
There are other seekers of desert solitude. How many were lured into the wild lands by the landscape and their sense of adventure but didn’t leave a journal of their wanderings? A few years ago a young man, I no longer recall his name, produced a blog about his travels in the deserts of southwest USA and other places. He would go out and live in caves in the red rock walls and wander the wild country. Those deserts have seen the coming and going of other loners — prospectors, photographers, archeologists, climbers, adventurers and more who were and who continue to be attracted to the open lands and wide horizons of these geologically bare bones spaces.
Through the millennia the deserts attracted seekers of philosophical and spiritual knowledge. In contrast, Everett was attracted by their rough physical beauty. That led to the sometimes almost-ecstatic state of mind which he documented in his letters.
David Roberts’ criticises some earlier writings about Everett for assumptions the authors made. What adds to the book is how his research extends into the search for Everett and into his cultlike status.
The book is well researched and comes across as authoritative. It is a good read for those with a penchant for mystery, wilderness and adventure.
Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer; David Roberts with foreword by Jon Krakauer. 2012, Broadway Books, USA. ISBN 9780307591777.
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