36 SMITHSONIAN.COM | November 2019
named Martin Tarwater, who off ered to cook for
them. Jack later fi ctionalized him, keeping the name
Tarwater, in a short story, “Like Argus of the An-
cient Times.” On August 21, with blistered feet and
raw shoulders, they reached Sheep Camp, which
Thompson described as “a very tough hole.” More
than 1,000 stampeders crowded together in a muddy
tent city. It was the last piece of level ground before
the dreaded ascent to Chilkoot Pass.
A photographer, Frank LaRoche, was there doc-
umenting the gold rush for the U.S. Geological Sur-
vey. He gathered up 24 men and photographed them
standing in the mud with a glacier in the background.
They all look stern and solemn, including young Jack
London with a tousled forelock protruding from his
cap and a hand shoved into his pocket. It’s the only
known photograph of him in the Far North.
A better known photograph shows a long line of
heavily laden men climbing up a brutally steep slope
to Chilkoot Pass—“like a column of ants,” Jack later de-
scribed them. It’s an astonishing image of men pushed
to extremes. Yet it fails to convey a key fact: Most of
the men had to climb that terrible slope 20 or 30 times.
The pass marked the boundary between Alaska, an
American possession, and the Yukon Territory. Ca-
nadian authorities required each individual to bring
enough food to last a year, or about 1,000 pounds. And
that load doubled with mining and camping gear.
Many men looked up at the steepness of the trail,
calculated how many trips it would take and turned
back toward Dyea, dumping the detestable burden
of their supplies. Many tried to make the climb, but
lacked the strength and stamina. They collapsed in
despair or grimacing in pain from back injuries. At
least 70 were killed by landslides and avalanches.
No one who lived through the Chilkoot ever forgot it,
least of all Jack London, who wrote about it with great
vividness in several fi ctional accounts.
The elation of reaching the top of the pass for the last
time did not last long; now the men had to backpack
all their supplies another 16 miles, then cut down trees
and build a boat, cross a series of lakes, portage the
boat and supplies between the lakes, then travel 500
miles north on the Yukon River—and do it all before
the river froze. It was already snowing in mid-Septem-
ber. Ice was forming on the lakeshores. Racing winter,
they rationed themselves to fi ve hours of sleep a night.
In a boat built from spruce by Sloper the carpen-
ter, with a mast and sail rigged by Jack London the
sailor, they made it over the lakes in gales and bliz-
zards, and saw two other boats capsize and drown
everyone aboard.
On September 24, they entered a tributary of the
Yukon River called Sixtymile. The following day at
Box Canyon, the river narrowed into a roaring, foam-
ing chute and they faced a tough decision. So many
boats had wrecked in the rapids that most stam-
The ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the
propeller, and though one day was very like
another, it was apparent to Buck that the
weather was steadily growing colder. At last,
one morning, the propeller was quiet, and the
Narwhal was pervaded with excitement. He felt
it and knew that a change was at hand.
The Call of the Wild