JACK LONDON'S TREASURE
A young adventurer struck it rich during Alaska’s Gold Rush of 1897 — not with his pickax, but with his words.
A young adventurer struck it rich during Alaska's Gold Rush of 1897 — not with his pickax, but with his words.
Before he became a literary legend, Jack London spent a year in search of a fortune in Alaska and the Yukon. During that year, he lost his shirt, his father, some of his teeth and all of his hopes of becoming rich on gold. But his experiences in the Klondike would compel him to write some of his best work and help him become one of the first American writers to turn literature into a lucrative career.
The Depression of 1893 was one of the worst in American history. So, when gold was discovered in the Klondike, news sailed south quickly and by July 1897, word was buzzing around the port cities of Seattle and San Francisco. London, living in San Francisco at the time, was only 21, but had already worked in a cannery, a jute mill and a laundry; he'd even spent some time as an oyster pirate and a hobo.
By the time news of the gold rush arrived, the best of the claims had already been staked out. Nevertheless, within six months an estimated 100,000 “stampeders” were off to become rich. Less than a third of them even managed to arrive in the Klondike.
London, already nearly destitute, desperately tried to raise money for supplies and passage, but it wasn't until his brotherin-law James Shepard caught the gold-rush fever that London's dream was converted to a plan. The two of them enthusiastically went about San Francisco gathering mining equipment, furs and supplies weighing in at nearly 2,000 pounds. Finally, on July 25, they sailed through the Golden Gate.
THE SNOW-COVERED PASS — AND THE DISCOURAGING STORIES OF MEN RETURNING THROUGH IT — CONVINCED SHEPARD TO TURN AROUND AND HEAD HOME. JACK PRESSED ON.
NORTH TO FORTUNE
Their steamer traveled up the Inside Passage of Alaska to the Lynn Canal, and they disembarked at Dyea with three new partners. They then faced the formidable challenge of hefting their gear through the Chilkoot Pass to arrive at Lindeman Lake. From there, they could navigate the Yukon River toward Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. The snow-covered pass — and the discouraging stories of men returning through it — convinced Shepard to turn around and head home. Jack pressed on. He lugged the lion's share of the supplies forward in segments, covering the 28-mile hike from Dyea to Lindeman Lake piece by piece. The last segment was three miles and London himself wrote of these supply runs, “I back-tripped it four times a day, and on each forward trip carried one hundred and fifty pounds.”
London and his companions bought lumber produced from the surrounding spruce forest and built a flat-bottomed boat they dubbed the Yukon Belle. London himself stitched and rigged a sail to spare them the rowing, and they were off with winter dogging them the whole way. A blizzard at Lake Laberge threatened to pin them down for the season, but London insisted they push on even as the waters were freezing over behind them.
The climax of the journey was yet to come. Box Canyon and White Horse Rapids threw up such torrents of whitewater that most sailors were compelled to go overland to bypass them. London again insisted they push on. He and his men successfully ran the whirlpool at Box Canyon. At White Horse, a sizeable crowd of spectators were on hand as London's crew shot the rapids amid the remains of less fortunate craft scattered across the rocks. The onlookers were impressed and the men stayed several days more to run a fleet of other vessels through, collecting a total of $3,000 at $25 per boat (that equates to $96,260 in today's U.S. dollars!). In October, London staked a claim “ascending the left fork of Henderson Creek” and days later filed it in Dawson City.
The journey, at least, was successful. The saying at the time was “two dollars go into the ground for each dollar that comes out.” The reality is estimated to be much worse: $60 million was spent by miners while the earth only gave up $10 million in gold. London watched his funds dwindle. The group holed up in an abandoned log cabin to await spring. The harsh winter brought weeklong blizzards and temperatures plummeting below minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 51 degrees Celsius). He and his companions fought hunger, boredom and the temptation to search for food — everyone told them that those who went out to hunt rarely returned.
A SPRING OF HOPE
Finally, in mid-May the ice on the Yukon began to break up. London ventured into Dawson but found the cost of supplies so high that he could only survive a few more weeks — and there was no hope of finding gold in that icy ground to reverse his fortune.
To compound his troubles, his teeth were loosening and his flesh turning gray; soon he was doubled over with pain. His diet's lack of vitamins had left him with scurvy and only immediate medical treatment saved his life. He saw no other choice but to head for home.
“Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it.”
– “Getting Into Print”
On June 8, 1898, he and two fellow prospectors set off down the Yukon River on a 21-day journey that would take them 1,800 miles to the Bering Sea at the port of St. Michael. Scurvy plagued him the entire way and eventually he lost his four front teeth. Grateful to have survived, London spent eight days shoveling coal on a steamer to British Columbia, earning enough for a steerage ticket on to Vancouver. From there, he hopped freight trains home to Oakland, California.
He returned to his widowed mother and the same economic hard times he'd tried to leave behind. But overcoming hardship in the north had given him raw material and a commitment to survive. His first publication, a story entitled “To the Man on the Trail,” ran in Overland Monthly, and garnered him a mere $5. But by 1900, McClure’s was paying him $300 for two stories and an article. His observations of the pack dogs in the Klondike would become the basis for The Call of the Wild. “To Build a Fire” — a short story about a man on the Yukon Trail who fatally ignores warnings about the cold — is still widely anthologized today. Later books, from The Sea-Wolf to Before Adam and The Star Rover to The Iron Heel, built on that early success and brought his reputation to ever-greater heights.
Jack London had risked his life in an unprofitable search for gold. But what he managed to find in the attempt proved to be far more valuable, not only to him, but to generations of readers.
HIS OBSERVATIONS OF THE PACK DOGS IN THE KLONDIKE WOULD BECOME THE BASIS FOR THE CALL OF THE WILD.