Gold fever, cold, and the true adventures of Jack London in the wild

Summary

Gold Fever! Deadly Cold! And the Amazing True Adventures of Jack London in the Wild In 1897, the California native went to the frozen North looking for gold. What he found instead was the great American novel Richard Grant; Photographs by Grant Harder November 2019 Deadly perils awaited prospectors who flocked to the Yukon. In April 1898, on a single day, 65 men on the Chilkoot Trail died in an avalanche. Typhoid also took its toll. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Hegg 97 Through the window of a small plane, I look out over the vastness of the Yukon Territory—an area bigger than California with only 33,000 residents. It’s an austere landscape of glaciated mountain ranges, frozen lakes, ice fields and spruce forests. Then the mountains are behind us, and there are low hills and tundra to the horizons, and a big frozen river starting to melt. It was this stark wilderness that 100,000 prospectors tried to cross on foot, and in homemade boats, during the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s. The “stampeders,” as they were known, were desperate to reach the gold fields around Dawson City, but the journey took more than two months, and was so punishing and dangerous that only 30,000 made it through. In the first wave was a tough, stocky 21-year-old from San Francisco named Jack London. Left, the riverfront in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, December 1897. Though his time in the Yukon was brutal, Jack London (right, in 1896) was grateful: “It was in the Klondike that I found myself. There you get your perspective.” Library of Congress; Jack London Collection / The Huntington Library, San Marino, California Questing for gold, what he found instead was inspiration and material for one of the most successful literary careers of all time. His best-known Yukon book, The Call of the Wild, has been translated into nearly 100 languages, and will be released in February as a movie starring Harrison Ford as a Klondike gold prospector. Such is the enduring power of ...