Carl McCunn (January 25, 1947 – December 18, 1981) was an American wildlife photographer who became stranded in the Alaskan wilderness and eventually died by suicide when he ran out of supplies. Early life and education McCunn was the son of Donovan McCunn and Erika Hess. He was born in Munich, Germany, where his father was stationed by the United States Army. He was raised in San Antonio, Texas, graduated from high school in 1964, and enlisted in the United States Navy shortly after dropping out of community college. McCunn served in the Navy for four years and was discharged in 1969. He briefly lived in Seattle, Washington, before settling in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1970. Alaskan excursion McCunn had lived five months on the Brooks Range in 1976. In March 1981, he hired a bush pilot to drop him off at a remote, unnamed lake approximately northeast of Fairbanks, approximately west of the Coleen River and north of Fort Yukon, Alaska, on the southern margin of the Brooks Range. McCunn intended to photograph wildlife for about five months. On this trip, he flew in with 500 rolls of film, of provisions, two rifles, and a shotgun. Believing he would not need them, he prematurely disposed of five boxes of shotgun shells in the river near his camp. He began his stay entranced by the local wildlife, which were returning to their summer grounds. Although McCunn thought he had arranged for a friend who was a pilot to return for him in August, he apparently had never confirmed this. McCunn had hired an air taxi service to fly him in and was expecting the friend to pick him up as he did not have enough money to pay for air taxi service out; however, McCunn compounded the error by never telling his friend he had hired the air taxi service to fly him to the remote location. The inbound air taxi pilot later testified "we had instructions he was to be picked up by a friend of his before winter set in, with a float plane." As the weather grew colder and his supplies began running low in early August, when the expected plane had not arrived, he wrote in his diary, "I think I should have used more foresight about arranging my departure. I'll soon find out." Apparently McCunn's pilot friend had told McCunn that he might be working in