Walk the Call of the Wild, Dyea to the Yukon
A judge's dog, stolen and sold north into harness in the Klondike gold rush. Your everyday steps follow Buck's trail over the Chilkoot and down the Yukon, and Jack London's words unlock where it happened.
- 464 miles
- 10 stops
- Jack London, 1903
The Klondike trail, in harness
Buck is stolen off a Californian lawn and shipped north into a harness. Four hundred and sixty-four miles of Klondike trail turn a judge's pet into something a good deal older than dogs — and London, who had been up that trail himself, never once lets him talk.
Gold was found in the Klondike in 1896, and the next year tens of thousands of people landed at Dyea and Skagway and hauled their supplies over the mountains to the Yukon. Buck goes the same way: up the Chilkoot Trail, over the divide to Lake Bennett, then hundreds of miles of frozen lakes and river to Dawson, pulling a sled of mail.
Jack London went north himself in 1897, spent a winter in the Yukon, got scurvy and came home with no gold. He came home with this instead, a short novel that never once lets its dog talk and is still one of the most widely read American novels. Every place on the route is on the map, and Bematist walks it there.
- Distance
- 464 miles (747 km)
- Stops
- 10, each with its own passage and plate
- Map
- The real world, on Apple Maps
- Text
- Jack London; Project Gutenberg ebook #215
Where it starts
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
The Call of the Wild, Chapter I · Into the Primitive
This is the passage Bematist gives you the moment you set out. The other 9 wait at the places they happened, and the only way to read them is to walk there.
How long would the Klondike take you?
Buck covered forty miles a day on the ice. You don't have to. Choose when you'd like to reach the Yukon and Bematist sets the pace from how much you already walk.
A rough guide, at about 0.75 m a step. In the app the pace comes from your own 30-day average in Apple Health, and stays fixed for the whole journey.
On the way
The words, at the places
10 passages, each waiting where it happened. You can see how far away the next one is, but not what it says.
Walk it with friends
Send a link and walk the same road together, each of you on your own streets, wherever you live.
No streak to lose
Steps come straight from Apple Health. A quiet day is just a short one, and your place on the road only moves forward.
More roads like this one
See the whole library, with a new book every month, chosen by walkers' vote.
Set out for the Yukon.
464 miles of The Call of the Wild, on the walks you already take.
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