About Jack London

 

• John Griffith London
• Born of an unmarried mother of wealthy background, Flora Wellman.
• Flora was ill; Jack was raised through infancy by an ex-slave, Virginia Prentiss, who would remain a major maternal figure while the boy grew up.
• Jack had little formal schooling.
•  school  through the 8th grade
• avid reader, educating himself at public libraries
• Jack returned to high school in Oakland and graduated.
• admittance to U.C. Berkeley, but stayed only for six months
• various hard labor jobs, pirated for oysters on San Francisco Bay, served on a fish patrol to capture poachers, sailed the Pacific on a sealing ship and was a gold prospector
• became acquainted with socialism
• Chose to become a writer to escape from the horrific prospects of life as a factory worker.
• 1900, Jack married his math tutor and friend, Bess Maddern.
• Based on “good breeding”, not love.
• 
   Two daughters — Joan and Becky with Bess Maddern, their mother..

Jack London, Glen Ellen California. By Walter?, Santa Rosa, California. (Picture from the sunsite.berkeley site stated above.)

• separation from Bess in 1903, he married his secretary, Charmian Kittredge
•  Whom he considered his “Mate Woman” and with whom he found true love.
• Their one child, Joy, only lived for thirty-eight hours.
• among the first writers to work with the movie industry, and saw a number of his novels made into films
• 1,000 words a day
• Become the best-selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time.
•  51 books and hundreds of his articles, thousands of letters
• loved to sail
• sailed to Alaska during gold rush
• 2,000 pounds of required equipment – warm garments, food, mining stuff, tents, blankets, a stove,
• forced to leave cuz of illness
• little gold discovered
• loved agriculture
• He brought to California techniques observed in Japan, such as terracing and manure spreading, and was accomplished in animal husbandry.
• Lived on a ranch
• Built a house “wolf house”
• Developed kidney disease, stomach disturbances
• Died at age 40 some say suicide from morphine overdose
• Others say uremic poisoning (on death certificate)

This information came from: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/    and         http://www.getyourwordsworth.com/WORDSWORTH-JackLondon.html

Obsession with Death

• Death is a common theme
• London was always very much in love with death
• Descriptions make it obvious he thought about death a lot and the various ways of dying
• 1^st hand knowledge- at sixteen he attempted suicide by nearly drowning by swimming to exhaustion in the San Francisco Bay while drunk
• never gives the protagonist in “To Build A Fire” a name
• may be intended to personalize for all readers the starkness of the struggle with nature
• London’s obsession may come from being depressed as a child (tried to kill himself and he was raised by a slave)
• May have experienced mild hypothermia or saw someone else experience a severe case
• May be where he got his idea for “To Build a Fire”
• Stages of Hypothermia
1. temp of 90 degrees F or less
2. depressed vital signs
3. Altered level of consciousness, slurred speech, staggering gait, decreased mental skills, or the lack of response to verbal or painful stimuli
4. no shivering in spite of being very cold

• # 3- sign on page 825
• # 4- sign on page 826
• Very realistic account could have come from 1^st hand
• Shows he thought about death a lot and it was important enough to him to write about.

Yukon Gold Rush

·        Started July 1897

·        epidemic of gold fever

·         More than 100,000 people through some of the most grueling physical labor and extreme weather conditions in an effort to "get rich quick."

·        encountered fierce avalanches

·        Naive and untrained, some of the earliest arrivals expected to be able to purchase food and supplies along the trail.

·        Read: Imagine pulling a sled loaded with three to six hundred pounds over a stretch of ice up a steep grade, strewn with boulders and logs, then crossing over a river bed on a couple of trees laid side by side and you get a picture of our labors," Fred Dewey

·        60 mile an hour winds in 65 degrees below zero

·        Headed up the Chilkoot- 1000 feet straight up!

·        Of the 100,000 people who completed the trip, only a handful struck it rich

·        Jack London was not one of those.

This information came from:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/gold/about.html and http://www.hypothermia.org/protocol.htm

 

Picture came from,

http://www.getyourwordsworth.com/WORDSWORTH-JackLondon.html

"...In the night sometime, a snow slide began. I was awakened by the roar, but I could see nothing. Several more occurred, only not as close. ...We rushed out and watched a genuine avalanche. It was a grand and beautiful sight. It looked like a great waterfall as the snow came pouring over the rocks. Men came pouring out into the streets of the camp, shouting and shooting their rifles into the air. Moments later a man came running into Joppe and Mueller's restaurant by the Scales, yelling, "For God's sake, come quick! Help dig out Mrs. Maxon and several others! They've been buried alive in their tent." ...As far as one could see up the gulch, winding in and out, were men going to the rescue. About five hundred feet beyond, several tents were buried. As I arrived, one tent had been uncovered and three taken out dead. No one knows how many are buried, probably between forty and one hundred."
-- Fred Dewey

 

 

“… The clouds set down on the mountain top and we dared not leave the camp for more than a few hundred feet, for fear we might lose our footing and be lunged over a precipice or into some yawning chasm in the mountain. A misstep meant death.

…Men are often taken with snow-blindness in that country and lie helpless for days in their tents, unable to cook enough to sustain life.
-- J.O. Hestwood

One Montana man took $96,000 out of 45-square feet, and another took $130,000 out of 85-square feet, and other strikes equally rich are reported.           --Hart Humber

Pictures and Quotes came from www.pbs.org site mentioned earlier.

Women

• A handbook of the day, Klondike and All about It, lent advice to women preparing to make the trek.
• One medicine case
• 2 pairs of extra-heavy all-wool blankets
• 1 small pillow
• 1 fur robe
• 1 warm shawl
• 1 fur coat, easy-fitting
• 3 woolen dresses
• 3 pairs of knickers
• 3 suits of heavy all-wool underwear
• 3 warm flannel night-dresses
• 4 pair of rubber boots
• 3 gingham aprons that reach from neck to knees,
• small roll of flannel, for insoles, wrapping the feet, and bandages
• a sewing kit
• such toilet articles as are absolutely necessary, including some skin unguent to protect the face from the icy cold
• 2 light blouses, or shirt waists, for summer wear
• 1 oilskin blanket to wrap her effects in (to be secured at Juneau or St. Michael's)
• 1 fur cape
• 2 pairs of fur gloves
• 2 pairs of surseal moccasins
• 2 pairs of muck lucks (wet-weather moccasins)"

Supplies Needed:

• 20 pounds of flour
• 12 pounds of bacon
• 12 pounds of beans
• 4 pounds of butter
• 5 pounds of vegetables
• 4 cans of condensed milk
• 5 pounds of sugar
• 1 pound of tea
• 3 pounds of coffee
• 1 1/2 pounds of salt
• 5 pounds of corn meal
• A small portion of pepper and mustard.

"The following utensils should be taken:

• 1 frying pan
• 1 water kettle
• 1 Yukon stove
• 1 bean pot
• 2 plates
• 1 tin drinking cup
• 1 tea pot
• 1 knife and fork
• 1 large and 1 small cooking pan

Tools:

• 1 jack plane
• 1 whip saw
• 1 cross-cut saw
• 1 axe
• 1 hatchet
• 1 hunting-knife
• 6 pounds of assorted nails
• 1 pound of oakum
• 5 pounds of pitch
• 150 feet of rope
• 1 Juneau sled
• duck tent
• Rubber blanket.
• mosquito netting
• good supply of matches,
• Fishing tackle, hooks, etc.
• Snow glasses to guard against snow blindness.