Everett Ruess

Infobox Person
name = Everett Ruess

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birth_date = March 28, 1914
birth_place = Los Angeles, California

death_date = 1934/5
death_place = Utah,United States
occupation = writer, artist
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parents =
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Everett Ruess (March 28, 1914-1934/5?) was an artist and writer who explored the deserts of the southwest, invariably alone. He was known for cutting linoleum prints of nature and associated with Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. His prints show scenes from the Monterey Bay coast, the northern California coast near Tomales Bay, the Sierra Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Ruess' father was a Unitarian minister, and the family moved often.

At the age of 20, he went into the Utah desert with two burros and never returned.fact|date=July 2008 The horse corral he made at his camp (coord|37|17|53.72|N|110|57|4.77|W|type:landmark_region:US) in Davis Gulch, a canyon of the Escalante was the only trace he left, and remains to this day. Some suspect he accidentally killed himself by falling off a cliff or drowning, whereas others think he was murdered [cite book|title=Into The Wild|first=Jon|last=Krakauer|year=1997|publisher=Anchor|location=New York|id=ISBN 0-385-48680-4|pages=p. 94-96] , which is a theory that may be confirmed by recent evidence [cite news |title=74-year-old Utah mystery may be solved |page=A.11 |date=July 24, 2008 |publisher=The Navajo Times] . Still others believe he crossed the Colorado River to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and married a Navajo womanfact|date=July 2008. In any case, his statements on life and adventure, combined with his unsolved disappearance, have led to a kind of legendary status.fact|date=July 2008

At the time that Ruess explored the remote canyons of the Southwestern United States, aside from Native Americans, Mormon pioneers and local cowboys, he was likely among the first "outsiders" to venture so deeply and completely into what was then (and to some extent still is) largely an unknown wilderness.

Ruess' story is best told in his own words, recently republished from the Gibbs Smith edition. His three books are illustrated by the woodcuts for which Ruess is admired. His story, along with that of Christopher McCandless, was retold more briefly in Jon Krakauer's book "Into the Wild". California musician Dave Alvin wrote and performed a song about Everett Ruess on the album Ashgrove [ [http://www.davealvin.com/dave/dashgrove/index.html Dave Alvin's Ashgrove ] ] and North Carolina roots musician Dana Robinson wrote and performed "Vagabond for Beauty" on the same theme, on the album "Round my Door" (2008).

Quotations

*"When I go, I leave no trace."

*"I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?"

*"I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities." - from the last letter Ruess sent to his brother, dated November 11, 1934.

ee also

*Christopher McCandless
*Carl McCunn

References

External links

* [http://everettruess.net/ Everett Ruess | Official Collection] - Works of Everett Ruess
* [http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/7423/ruess.html Everett Ruess: Western Wanderer] - Journal excerpts and Letters