Northland Stories

Jack London’s references to specific towns and geographical features in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon are for the most part highly accurate in these stories. Given my own emphasis on treating London’s Northland as an abstract symbolic terrain, I have refrained from glossing particular locations, which can easily be identified by consulting any detailed map of the Yukon Territory.

2 [Epworth] The Epworth League was a Methodist youth organization founded in 1889.

3 [gee-pole] A steering mechanism attached to the front right runner of the dog sled.

7 [bench claim] Title for a piece of mining property issued by a judge or law court.

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.

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.

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.

58 [Factor] The principal financial agent of a trading company.

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.

94 [Chief Factor] See note 58.

106 [Yukon stove] See note 32.

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.

147 [bald-face] A type of grizzly bear.

162 [bald-face] See note 147.

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.

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.

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.

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.