Follow in the frozen footsteps of Jack London’s classic adventure novel, Call of the Wild
Claire Webb - 12 February 2020
Rule number one: Don’t let go,” says the musher cheerfully, as she harnesses four wolfish-looking huskies to my sled. It immediately jerks forward as the dogs jump and caper. Unlike me, they’re raring to go. When I booked dogsledding at Sky High Wilderness Ranch, I imagined I’d be doing nothing more taxing than trying not to fall off, but we’ve each been given our own sled to drive. Our no-nonsense musher, Jocelyne, tries and fails to reassure us: “It’s like downhill skiing – but with no ski lift.”
Suddenly we’re off, and I’m clinging on for dear life as Amber, Wilbur, Zia and Ed plunge into the woods, dragging me behind. Jocelyn leads the way and the dogs follow, clearly knowing the drill. When I press too hard on the brake, they obediently stop but look back at me as if to say, “Amateur! What are you doing?”
I relax and begin to enjoy gliding through a winter wonderland. We race along the shore of a frozen lake, under a sky painted yellow and silver by the low sun. I’ve come to Canada’s westernmost territory – the Yukon – to follow in the tracks of one of literature’s unluckiest dogs: Buck, the star of Jack London’s bestselling 1903 novella Call of the Wild, and now the hero of a big-budget movie starring Harrison Ford (in cinemas from Wednesday 19 February). It’s set during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, when 100,000 would-be millionaires embarked on a perilous 600-mile journey from the Alaskan coast to the goldfields in the Yukon. Only around 30,000 made it, and very few struck it lucky
As for poor Buck, he’s kidnapped from his Californian home, shipped to the wilds of Alaska, sold to a mail delivery dog-sled team and suffers at the hands of callous masters. I’m assured modern mushers are a different breed and adore their dogs, and Amber, Wilbur, Zia and Ed certainly seem bright eyed, bushy-tailed and delighted to be chaperoning me.
Although it’s off-grid and feels like the back of beyond, the ranch is only 30 minutes from the Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse, a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Vancouver. The territory is Canada’s least-populated region – most of its 35,000 inhabitants live in Whitehorse. The rest is largely wilderness.
Boom Town
From Whitehorse, we venture north to the epicentre of the Klondike Gold Rush, Dawson City. By 1898, it was one of the biggest cities in North America and nicknamed “Paris of the North” because you could get everything from haute couture to champagne and oysters. Its heyday only lasted a year, and most of the gold diggers soon moved on.
During the seven-hour drive, we don’t pass a single town, but do spy bald eagles and two coyotes gambolling through the powdery snow. The ice encrusted forest grows thin as we cruise along the highway, then disappears altogether behind a thick blanket of fog and we arrive in the midst of a blizzard.
Dawson City is 280 miles below the Arctic Circle; the temperature can get down to -40°C in winter, and the Yukon River is frozen for eight months of the year. When I visit, it’s -11°C, which is unseasonably warm, according to the hotel receptionist. Still, I’m grateful for my rented snow pants, parka, boots and mittens as I plod along the snowy wooden boardwalks.
Hemmed in by peaks, Dawson still feels like a frontier town, and looks like an abandoned film set. Its brightly painted wooden buildings still have boom-town names: Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall, Bombay Peggy’s, Red Feather Saloon. Some look like they’ve had a couple of whiskies too many, such as the crooked church and lopsided Kissing Buildings – an abandoned hardware store and hotel.
A replica of Jack London’s cheerless log cabin has an inscription on the wall: “Jack London – author, miner, January 27, 1898”. When he carved it, the penniless young man was neither. Like his canine protagonist in Call of the Wild, his only winter in the Yukon was tough. He developed scurvy and had lost his four front teeth by the time he returned to California after nine months, with only $6.50 of gold in his pocket. He had hit the jackpot, though: his misadventures in the north inspired many of the tales that brought him fame and riches. Nowadays visitors pan for gold in Bonanza Creek and do tours of its defunct dredge, but small familyowned companies still dig in the hills. Along with tourism, goldmining is the main industry.
Frozen Toe Cocktail
On my final night in Dawson City, I find myself ordering Sourdough Saloon’s infamous Sourtoe Cocktail: a tumbler of liquor of your choice with a long, black, preserved human toe. Legend has it that the original toe belonged to a rum-runner who had to chop off his frostbitten toe with an axe and preserved it in a jar of rum. Over the years, other amputees have donated their severed toes to the Sourtoe Cocktail Club.
“You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the gnarled toe,” says the bartender with convincing menace. I knock back my whiskey and kiss the curling nail, telling myself I got off lightly in Canada’s wild west compared to the unfortunate rumrunner, and Jack London.
Suddenly we’re off, and I’m clinging on for dear life as Amber, Wilbur, Zia and Ed plunge into the woods, dragging me behind. Jocelyn leads the way and the dogs follow, clearly knowing the drill. When I press too hard on the brake, they obediently stop but look back at me as if to say, “Amateur! What are you doing?”
I relax and begin to enjoy gliding through a winter wonderland. We race along the shore of a frozen lake, under a sky painted yellow and silver by the low sun. I’ve come to Canada’s westernmost territory – the Yukon – to follow in the tracks of one of literature’s unluckiest dogs: Buck, the star of Jack London’s bestselling 1903 novella Call of the Wild, and now the hero of a big-budget movie starring Harrison Ford (in cinemas from Wednesday 19 February). It’s set during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, when 100,000 would-be millionaires embarked on a perilous 600-mile journey from the Alaskan coast to the goldfields in the Yukon. Only around 30,000 made it, and very few struck it lucky
As for poor Buck, he’s kidnapped from his Californian home, shipped to the wilds of Alaska, sold to a mail delivery dog-sled team and suffers at the hands of callous masters. I’m assured modern mushers are a different breed and adore their dogs, and Amber, Wilbur, Zia and Ed certainly seem bright eyed, bushy-tailed and delighted to be chaperoning me.
Although it’s off-grid and feels like the back of beyond, the ranch is only 30 minutes from the Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse, a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Vancouver. The territory is Canada’s least-populated region – most of its 35,000 inhabitants live in Whitehorse. The rest is largely wilderness.
Boom Town
From Whitehorse, we venture north to the epicentre of the Klondike Gold Rush, Dawson City. By 1898, it was one of the biggest cities in North America and nicknamed “Paris of the North” because you could get everything from haute couture to champagne and oysters. Its heyday only lasted a year, and most of the gold diggers soon moved on.
During the seven-hour drive, we don’t pass a single town, but do spy bald eagles and two coyotes gambolling through the powdery snow. The ice encrusted forest grows thin as we cruise along the highway, then disappears altogether behind a thick blanket of fog and we arrive in the midst of a blizzard.
Dawson City is 280 miles below the Arctic Circle; the temperature can get down to -40°C in winter, and the Yukon River is frozen for eight months of the year. When I visit, it’s -11°C, which is unseasonably warm, according to the hotel receptionist. Still, I’m grateful for my rented snow pants, parka, boots and mittens as I plod along the snowy wooden boardwalks.
Hemmed in by peaks, Dawson still feels like a frontier town, and looks like an abandoned film set. Its brightly painted wooden buildings still have boom-town names: Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall, Bombay Peggy’s, Red Feather Saloon. Some look like they’ve had a couple of whiskies too many, such as the crooked church and lopsided Kissing Buildings – an abandoned hardware store and hotel.
A replica of Jack London’s cheerless log cabin has an inscription on the wall: “Jack London – author, miner, January 27, 1898”. When he carved it, the penniless young man was neither. Like his canine protagonist in Call of the Wild, his only winter in the Yukon was tough. He developed scurvy and had lost his four front teeth by the time he returned to California after nine months, with only $6.50 of gold in his pocket. He had hit the jackpot, though: his misadventures in the north inspired many of the tales that brought him fame and riches. Nowadays visitors pan for gold in Bonanza Creek and do tours of its defunct dredge, but small familyowned companies still dig in the hills. Along with tourism, goldmining is the main industry.
Frozen Toe Cocktail
On my final night in Dawson City, I find myself ordering Sourdough Saloon’s infamous Sourtoe Cocktail: a tumbler of liquor of your choice with a long, black, preserved human toe. Legend has it that the original toe belonged to a rum-runner who had to chop off his frostbitten toe with an axe and preserved it in a jar of rum. Over the years, other amputees have donated their severed toes to the Sourtoe Cocktail Club.
“You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the gnarled toe,” says the bartender with convincing menace. I knock back my whiskey and kiss the curling nail, telling myself I got off lightly in Canada’s wild west compared to the unfortunate rumrunner, and Jack London.