by Jack London
7 [bench claim] Title for a piece of mining property issued by a judge or law court.
“The Son of the Wolf”
19 [Jelchs, the Raven] In the mythology of the Indians of Upper Tanana in northern Alaska (where this story takes place), as well as Northwest Coast tribes such as the Tlingit, the totemic figure of the Raven plays the role of Transformer or Creator. One Tlingit creation myth in particular recounts how a spirit called Yehlh, appearing in the form of a Raven, released the sun and gave fire and light to the earth.
“In a Far Country”
28 [voyageur] A person who transported goods and men by boat during the Canadian fur trade.
32 [Yukon stove-pipe] The Yukon stove was a portable contraption that was for used for cooking as well as heating.
33 [to clip his coupons] The practice by which owners of stock routinely redeemed their corporate dividends.
34 [slush-lamp] A primitive lamp usually made of a tin can which used bacon grease instead of oil.
37 [Caliban] The savage, deformed slave of the exiled Duke Prospero in Shakepeare’s The Tempest.
“To the Man on Trail”
43 [Lochinvar] The hero of a ballad in Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion, who runs away with another lover just as she is about to be married to someone else.
49 [P. C. store] The store of a trading company (presumably the Alaska Commercial Company), which often served as a bank for its customers.
50 [Captain Constantine] Beginning in 1895, Inspector Charles Constantine was the chief land agent, collector of customs, as well as the leader of the Northwest Mounted Police in the Yukon District.
51 [jumps the limit, and drops the whole sack] Instead of purchasing a claim in Dawson City for Westondale, Castrell gambles away the entire sum.
“The Wisdom of the Trail”
58 [Factor] The principal financial agent of a trading company.
“An Odyssey of the North”
61 [Yukon stove] See note 32.
61 [voyageurs] See note 28.
61 [Wolseley] In 1884-1885 Garnet Joseph Wolseley headed the British military campaign along the Nile River to the city of Khartoum.
61 [Louis Reil (sic)] In 1869-1870 and in 1885 Louis Riel unsuccessfully led Frenchmen, Indians, and half-breeds to fight for their cultural and political rights by rebelling against British rule in the Northwest Territories.
62 [coureurs du bois] An unlicensed French or French-Indian fur trader or trapper.
62 [bois brules] Literally, burnt wood, Canadian term for French-Indian half-breeds.
67 [a king of Eldorado] A miner who has struck it rich in the Klondike’s Eldorado Creek, named after the mythic New World land of limitless gold.
69 [quartz ... placer] Quartz gold is embedded in rocks, usually a more substantial source than placer gold, which is gold mixed in with sand or gravel.
70 [slush-lamp] See note 34.
73 [oomiak] Same as umaik, a large, open boat made of skins used by Eskimos for transporting goods.
90 [Constantine] See note 50.
“The God of His Fathers”
94 [Chief Factor] See note 58.
“Siwash”
106 [Yukon stove] See note 32.
“Grit of Women”
121 [Sulphur Creek stampede] One important site of the early rush to the Klondike gold fields.
124 [factor’s] See note 58.
128 [sun-dogs] Colloquial for parhelions, bright, colored spots of light sometimes seen in conjunction with a solar halo.
“The Law of Life”
147 [bald-face] A type of grizzly bear.
“The Death of Ligoun”
162 [bald-face] See note 147.
“The League of the Old Men”
187 [time of the captains] During the early stages of settlement, the Yukon was under paramilitary control by the officers of the Northwest Mounted Police, before a governor was assigned to oversee the region. The Yukon was not officially declared a Territory of the Canadian Dominion until 1898. As the story opens Old Imber is waiting for trial in the Barracks headquarters of the Mounted Police.
189 [Eldorado king’s sombrero] See note 67.
“The Story of Jees Uck”
206 [clipped coupons] See note 33.
217 [Rhodes of Alaska] Cecil J. Rhodes (1853-1902), financier and colonial administrator who helped develop South Africa under British rule.
“The Sun-Dog Trail”
246 [title] See note 128.
247 [“Leda and the Swan”] Leading to the birth of Helen of Troy, this mythic rape between the woman Leda and the god Zeus (disguised as a swan) was the subject of numerous fin-de-siècle paintings.
254 [stampede] See note 121.
“To Build a Fire”
268 [niggerheads] dark bunches of vegetation spotting the Yukon landscape.
273 [wires were pretty well down] A metaphor taken from telegraph transmission to explain the man’s loss of control over his body.
APPENDIX
This is the order of stories as published in Jack London’s first three collected Northland volumes, followed parenthetically by places and dates of initial periodical publication.
The Son of the Wolf: Tales of the Far North. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, April 1900.
“The White Silence” (Overland Monthly 33 [February 1899]).
“The Son of the Wolf” (Overland Monthly 33 [April 1899]).
“The Men of Forty-Mile” (Overland Monthly 33 [May 1899]).
“In a Far Country” (Overland Monthly, 33 [June 1899]).
“To the Man on Trail” (Overland Monthly 33 [January 1899]).
“The Priestly Prerogative” (Overland Monthly 34 [July 1899]).
“The Wisdom of the Trail” (Overland Monthly 34 [December 1899]).
“The Wife of a King” (Overland Monthly 34 [August 1899]).
“An Odyssey of the North” (Atlantic Monthly 85 [January 1900]).
The God of His Fathers & Other Stories. McClure, Phillips and Co., New York, May 1901.
“The God of His Fathers” (McClure’s 17 [May 1901]).
“The Great Interrogation” (Ainslee’s Magazine 6 [December 1900]).
“Which Make Men Remember” (published as “Uri Bram’s God” in San Francisco Examiner, Sunday Examiner Magazine, June 24, 1900).
“Siwash” (Ainslee’s Magazine 7 [March 1901]).
“The Man with the Gash” (McClure’s 15 [September 1900]).
“Jan, the Unrepentant” (Outing 36 [August 1900]).
“Grit of Women” (McClure’s 15 [August 1900]).
“Where the Trail Forks” (Outing 37 [December 1900]).
“A Daughter of the Aurora” (San Francisco Wave, December 24, 1899).
“At the Rainbow’s End” (Pittsburgh Leader, March 24, 1901).
“The Scorn of Women” (Overland Monthly 37 [May 1901]).
Children of the Frost. The Macmillan Co., New York, September 1902.
“In the Forests of the North” (Pearson’s Magazine 14 [September 1902]).
“The Law of Life” (McClure’s 16 [March 1901]).
“Nam-Bok the Unveracious” (published as “Nam-Bok, the Liar” in Ainslee’s Magazine 10 [August 1902]).
“The Master of Mystery” (Out West 17 [September 1902]).
“The Sunlanders” (no periodical publication).
“The Sickness of Lone Chief” (Out West 17 [October 1902]).
“Keesh, the Son of Keesh” (published as “Keesh, Son of Keesh” in Ainslee’s Magazine 8 [January 1902]).
“The Death of Ligoun” (no periodical publication).
“Li Wan, the Fair” (published as “Li-Wan, the Fair” in Atlantic Monthly 90 [August 1902]).
“The League of the Old Men” (Brandur Magazine 1 [October 4, 1902]).
Publication dates and places for the remaining stories in this present edition are as follows:
The Faith of Men. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1904.
“The Story of Jees Uck” (Smart
Set 8 [September 1902]).
Love of Life and Other Stories. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1907.
“Love of Life” (McClure’s 26 [December 1905]).
“The Sun-Dog Trail” (Harper’s 112 [December 1905]).
Lost Face. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1910.
“To Build a Fire” (The Century Magazine 76 [August 1908]).
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1 Richard Brodhead, Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 107-76.
2 See, for instance, Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980).