Everett Ruess

Everett Ruess (March 28, 1914 – c. November 1934) was a young American artist, poet, and writer known for his solo explorations of the High Sierra, the California coast, and the deserts of the American Southwest and his ultimate disappearance while traveling through a remote area of Utah. His fate remains a mystery to this day.

In 2009, DNA from human remains found in Utah were initially linked to Ruess, but the findings were soon challenged and shown conclusively to actually be the remains of an American Indian. The 2009 find did not resolve the Ruess mystery but rather fueled popular interest in his story.

Biography

Early life

Ruess was the younger of two sons of Stella and Christopher Ruess. Christopher was a Unitarian minister whose work caused the family to move every few years.^[1] Everett's older brother, Waldo, was born on September 5, 1909.^[2] A precocious child, Everett Ruess began woodcarving, modeling in clay, and sketching at an early age. At 12, he was writing essays and verse, and began a literary diary that eventually grew into volumes, with pages telling of his travels, thoughts, and works.^[3] By 1920, the Ruess family was living in Brookline, Massachusetts,^[4] and by 1930, they were living at 836 North Kingsley Drive in Los Angeles.^[5] Ruess took a creative writing class at Los Angeles High School and later won a poetry award at Valparaiso High School, in Indiana.^[3] At Hollywood High School he served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Tabard Folk, the school's literary club.^[6] That year, he published an original poem in the yearbook, entitled "Lonesome."^[7] In 1931, he served as vice-president of the school's Civic Club.^[8]

Travels

Starting in 1931, Ruess traveled by horse and burro through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado, exploring the high desert of the Colorado Plateau. He rode broncos, branded calves, and investigated cliff dwellings, trading his prints and watercolors to pay his way. He explored Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks and the High Sierra in the summers of 1930 and 1933. In 1934, he worked with University of California archaeologists near Kayenta, took part in a Hopi religious ceremony, and learned to speak Navajo.^[3]

Disappearance

On November 20, 1934, Ruess set out alone into the Utah desert, taking two burros as pack animals. He was never seen again.^[3] The only sign of him was a corral he had made at his campsite (37°17′53.72″N 110°57′4.77″W / 37.2982556°N 110.9513250°W / 37.2982556; -110.9513250) in Davis Gulch, a canyon of the Escalante River. Some think he may have fallen off a cliff or drowned in a flash flood; others suspected he had been murdered.^[9][10] An unlikely story is that he crossed the Colorado River to the Navajo Reservation, married a Navajo woman, and lived there in secrecy the rest of his life.^[9] His mysterious disappearance turned him into a folk hero.^[11]

Other than Native Americans, Mormon pioneers, and local cowboys, Ruess was one of the first "outsiders" to venture so deeply and completely into what was then largely an unknown wilderness.

The discovery of a grave site on Comb Ridge, near the town of Bluff, Utah, added to the mystery. An elderly Navajo claimed that Ruess was murdered by two Ute Indians who wanted his burros. Bones and teeth found in the grave allegedly matched Ruess' race, age, size, and facial features. In April 2009, comparison of DNA from the remains and that of Everett's nieces and nephew,^[12][13] and comparison of the skull to photographs, seemed to confirm that the remains were those of Ruess.^[14][15][16] Two months later, however, Kevin Jones, state archaeologist of Utah, advised the remains probably were not Ruess', since dental records from the 1930s do not match those in published photographs of the body.^[17][18]

On October 21, 2009, the Associated Press reported that DNA tests conducted by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology show the remains are not those of Ruess. Instead, they probably belong to a Native American.^[19][20][21] A later article in National Geographic Adventure Magazine identified problems in the DNA matching software as the source of the error.^[22]

Works

Ruess was known for making linoleum prints of landscapes and nature, and was 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 wrote no books during his life, but he was a lifelong diarist and he sent home hundreds of letters.^[23] His journals and poetry were posthumously published in two books, both illustrated with his own woodcuts:

• Lacy, Hugh (Editor) (1940). On Desert Trails. El Centro, California: Desert Magazine Press. CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Rusho, W.L. (1983). Everett Ruess: Vagabond for Beauty. Peregrine Smith Books. 

His story, along with that of Christopher McCandless, was retold more briefly in Jon Krakauer's 1996 book Into the Wild. Ruess is also mentioned in Edward Abbey's 1968 book Desert Solitaire.

Everett's last letter to his brother, Waldo, said:

... as to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon. I have not tired of the wilderness... It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty... This had been a full, rich year. I have left no strange or delightful thing undone I wanted to do.^[3]

In popular culture

• California musician Dave Alvin wrote and performed a song about Everett Ruess on the album Ashgrove.^[24]
• North Carolina roots musician Dana Robinson wrote and performed "Everett Ruess," on the album Round my Door (2008).
• Singer/songwriter and long-distance hiker Walkin' Jim Stoltz recorded the song "The Wild Escalante (Ballad of Everett Ruess)" on his album Little Piece of Time (2005).
• The Petals recorded "Everett Ruess" for their album Cadis Center (1994).^[25]
• A species of dinosaur, Seitaad ruessi, from the Lower Jurassic of Utah was named in honor of Everett Ruess by J.J.W. Sertich and M. Loewen, in 2010.^[26]

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.

See also

• Lillian Alling
• Christopher Thomas Knight
• Christopher McCandless, subject of Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild, later adapted into a film by Sean Penn (2007)
• Carl McCunn, wildlife photographer who became stranded in the Alaskan wilderness and eventually committed suicide when he ran out of supplies (1981)
• Lars Monsen, Norwegian adventurer and TV personality who once travelled by foot, canoe, and dog sled from the east coast of Canada to the west coast, which took over two years to complete
• Dan O'Neill (writer)
• Timothy Treadwell
• Velma Wallis
• Ed Wardle, documented his solo wilderness adventure in the 2009 television series Alone in the Wild
• List of people who disappeared mysteriously

References

Further reading

• Philip L. Fradkin: Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife. University of California Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0520265424

External links

• Everett Ruess, Works of Everett Ruess, official site.
• Everett Ruess: Western Wanderer, Journal excerpts and Letters.
• Works by or about Everett Ruess in libraries (WorldCat catalog)