Buck, a big strong dog who lived in California got stolen, shipped off to the Yukon and pressed into service as a sled dog. You know this story, so you know Buck existed only in the mind of Jack London until London put pen to paper and made Buck a legend in his book Call of the Wild.
Millions of dollars in gold came out of the Yukon, but Jack London’s stories may have had more value in the long run.
Link to another story “Women Came to the Klondike Too”
Born John Griffith Chaney to an unwed mother, he barely knew his father. He took to calling himself Jack and when his mother married John London, Jack became Jack London.
The little family settled in Oakland; never had much money. Young Jack fended for himself. A website named Biography tells us, “He rode trains, pirated oysters, shoveled coal, worked on a sealing ship on the Pacific.”
Against all odds, though, he managed to get himself educated, and he spent his free time in libraries reading novels, travel books, whatever caught his interest. He came home from one particularly difficult and dangerous sealing voyage and as he told his mother about it she talked him into writing it up and submitting it to a writing contest in a local paper. He won $25.
He quickly learned, though, that writing short stories would not support him. When he learned of the gold on the Klondike he, like so many other young men with high hopes and poor prospects, headed north to Canada. He did not find any gold, but he returned to California still determined to make a living as a writer, and the Klondike had provided a subject.
The Overland Weekly began buying his stories. And then came Buck and Call of the Wild. At 27 he suddenly had found money and fame.
Over the last years of his life he spent a short time as a war correspondent (the Russo-Japanese War), lectured on the evils of capitalism, helped introduce Americans to the sport of surfing… And he published more than fifty books.
None of them surpassed Buck’s story, Call of the Wild.
Thanks for sharing, was all news to me. Cheers!
You are more than welcome.