T HE G LENCOE L ITERATURE L IBRARY Study Guide for The Call of the Wild by Jack London A i Meet Jack London the University of California. After a year at the university, he couldn’t resist the lure of the Klondike gold rush in Canada. He never returned to college, but he also never got rich from his trip to the goldfields. London came home from Canada not with gold, but with ideas. Becoming a writer was one way to escape what he felt would be a dreary existence as a laborer. He trained himself by studying other writers’ works. He began submitting jokes, stories, and poems to magazines and received many rejection let- ters. Gradually, however, success came. His Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, first book, The Son of the Wolf, was well had found a yellow metal, and because steamship received when it was published in 1900. The and transportation companies were booming the Call of the Wild, published three years later, find, thousands of men were rushing brought London lasting fame. into the Northland. London was a popular figure. He used his position to win support for certain causes in —Jack London, in the opening paragraph of The Call of the Wild which he believed, such as socialism, women’s suffrage, and prohibition. He also endorsed, or recommended for use, certain commercial ack London not only wrote adventure products, making him one of the first Jstories, he lived them. He was one of celebrity spokespersons. thousands of men who went to Canada dur- Even after London achieved success as a ing the 1890s to prospect for gold, and he writer, he continued to be well disciplined once traveled hundreds of miles across the about his work. He completed fifty books— United States by hopping freight trains. including novels and short story collections— The author-adventurer was born John during his seventeen-year writing career. At Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876. Shortly the time, he was the highest paid writer in thereafter, the boy took his stepfather’s last the United States. name, London. The family lived in Oakland, London was married twice. He and his California. first wife had two daughters. In 1905 he London quit school when he was fourteen bought a ranch in Glen Ellen, California. and alternately worked and traveled for There, he practiced agricultural techniques he several years. For awhile, he made a living had learned in Japan. stealing oysters. Then he switched jobs and Though the circumstances of London’s Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. worked on a government patrol to prevent death are somewhat controversial, he proba- people from stealing oysters. He also went to bly died from kidney disease. He was only Japan, working as a sailor. forty years old when he died, but he had When London was nineteen, he returned achieved a great deal in his lifetime. Trans- to school. He completed a four-year high lations of his works are still widely read all school curriculum in one year and entered over the world. The Call of the Wild Study Guide 9 Introducing the Novel Mere escape novels do not become classics— The detail of the story is rich because and The Call of the Wild has become one of London wrote about subjects with which he the great books in world literature, published in was familiar. He had been in the Yukon hundreds of editions in more than fifty Territory during the gold rush, had felt the languages. cold, heard the dog fights, and seen the many —Earle Labor, in Dictionary of Literary Biography different kinds of people who were there. He The Call of the Wild could be called an enter- weaves his story of Buck so carefully that taining tale about a dog, but it is much more readers, too, can be in the Yukon. to its readers. London explores basic ques- THE TIME AND PLACE tions about a person’s relationship to him or herself, to others, and to the natural world. George Washington Carmack, Tagish The story appeals to many different types Charlie, and Skookum Jim made a discovery of readers. Anyone who has known the loyalty that brought tens of thousands of people of a dog can understand how some of Buck’s streaming into the northwestern part of masters feel. Adventurers and risk-takers will Canada. They discovered gold in Bonanza see themselves in the sled drivers as they Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River, in travel across the frozen expanses of the Yukon. August 1896. This was not the first time gold Did You Know? Inuit, a native people of North America, were seven, or nine. The method of hitching the the first to use dogs to pull sleds over the dogs to the sled, called a gang hitch, requires snow and ice of Canada and Alaska. Dogsleds an odd number. A single dog leads, with the were practical for transporting supplies such other dogs hitched in pairs behind. The dogs as firewood or freshly killed meat. Some peo- respond to voice commands from the driver, Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. ple still use dogsleds for work and transport. or musher. Average races are twelve- to thirty- However, airplanes and snowmobiles have miles long. Drivers and their teams race mostly replaced the dogsleds as a means of against time. transportation. Dogsledding has become a Perhaps the most famous dogsled racing popular hobby and sport in some areas. event is Alaska’s Iditarod Trail race. The Modern dogsleds are still made of wood, race’s fame stems from its length—over like the early Inuit sleds, but the runners are 1,150 miles. The route follows a mail route covered with aluminum or steel. Lightweight that was established in 1910 between Knik, a ash wood is used to make racing sleds. city near Anchorage, and Nome. At that time, Dogs are especially trained for sled rac- dogsleds carrying mail regularly covered the ing. Breeds such as Eskimos, Siberian distance. The race, as it is today, began in huskies, Samoyeds, and malamutes are best 1973 and is run in March each year. The suited to the task because of their strength, 1973 winner took about twenty days to com- coats, and disposition. Most dog teams plete the course. In the 1990s, the winners include odd numbers of dogs—usually five, were finishing in about eleven days. 10 The Call of the Wild Study Guide had been found in that region of the summer, humans and animals were attacked world. Prospectors had been working in by swarms of mosquitoes and flies. and around the Klondike and Yukon rivers Few miners came away wealthy. Many for several decades. But the find on who actually did find gold spent it all while Bonanza Creek was notable for two rea- celebrating in boomtowns such as Dawson sons. First, the quantity of the gold in the City. Merchants and opportunists were all stream was remarkable. Second, much of too ready to accept gold dust and nuggets the gold was easy to get using simple min- from miners who were happy to show off ing techniques. their good fortune. Miners were often the tar- The Klondike gold rush, as it came to be get of lawless men who were willing to rob or called, attracted thousands of hopeful min- murder to get a share of the riches. ers. Many came by ship to Skagway, Alaska, In addition to the hazards of boom- where they purchased supplies at inflated towns were the dangers of wilderness prices and outfitted themselves for the trip travel. The elements claimed many vic- north. Winter was the easiest season during tims as inexperienced prospectors froze, which to travel because the rivers were starved, or got lost in the forests and snow- frozen, but winter temperatures regularly fields. The territory’s rushing rivers also registered 50 degrees below zero. During the claimed many victims. ALASKA AND THE YUKON TERRITORY UNITED STATES CANADA Alaska Bering Circle Yukon r Á Sea ve Territory Ri n Á Fairbanks ko u Y Forty-Mile Dawson River Á r D Rive R a n a Klondike k a g e w s s a o l n A R W a n h g B e i i Á Anchorage t g e S a Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. R lm iv on e Ra [ r nge Scale in Miles Gulf of Alaska ÁSkagway 0150 The Call of the Wild Study Guide 11 Before You Read The Call of the Wild Chapters 1–3 FOCUS ACTIVITY Book and chapter titles provide clues to content, hinting at actions to come. What does the title The Call of the Wild suggest that the book will be about? What do the titles of the first three chapters suggest? Think–Pair–Share Pair up with a classmate and, based on the titles, predict what will happen to Buck the dog. Make note of your predictions so that you can check them later. Setting a Purpose Read to discover how Buck is used to living and what changes he must endure. BACKGROUND Did You Know? In The Call of the Wild, Jack London writes about his main character, the dog Buck, as if the dog were human. The formal name for giving human qualities to animals is anthropomorphism. This word comes from the Greek words for “human” and “form.” To anthropomorphize something is to give it human form, or human characteristics. London doesn’t have Buck speak or walk upright, but he does give the dog human thoughts and emotions.