The "Into the Wild" story seems to keep popping up (and is indeed powerfully fascinating and symbolic to some). This latest theory of what killed Chris McCandless may be of interest. How much weight to give it? I leave that to you.

"A researcher named Ronald Hamilton had written a paper arguing that McCandless had, in fact, been killed by the wild potato seeds, but not because of any "toxic alkaloids." Rather, Hamilton argued, McCandless's meager diet and malnutrition in the wilderness had made him susceptible to a rare but brutal affliction called "lathyrism" that gradually paralyzes its victims. Lathryrism occurs primarily in malnourished young men, and it is caused by the ingestion of an amino acid that was first discovered in the seeds of wild grass peas."

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-chris-mccandless-died-in-into-the-wild-2013-9