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, near the confluence of the Coleen and Porcupine Rivers, 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.