The story opens with Buck, a powerful 140-pound St. Bernard–Scotch Collie mix,[1][2] living happily in California's Santa Clara Valley as the pampered pet of Judge Miller and his family in the summer of 1897. One night, Judge Miller's assistant gardener Manuel, desperately needing money, steals Buck. At first, Buck assumes that Manuel is simply walking him, but Manuel brings Buck directly to the College Park station and sells him to a stranger. Buck is shipped to Seattle. Put in a crate, he is starved and ill-treated. When released, Buck attacks his overseer who teaches Buck the "law of the club", hitting Buck until he is sufficiently cowed (but the man shows some kindness after Buck stops attacking). Buck is sold to two French-Canadian dispatchers from the Canadian government, François and Perrault, who take him to Alaska. They train him as a sled dog, and drive him through the Klondike region of Canada. From his teammates, he quickly learns to adapt to survive cold winter nights and the pack society. A rivalry develops between Buck and the lead dog, Spitz, a vicious and quarrelsome white husky. Buck eventually kills Spitz in a fight and becomes the lead dog.
California native Jack London had traveled around the United States as a hobo, returned to California to finish high school (he dropped out at age 14), and spent a year in college at Berkeley, when in 1897 he went to the Klondike by way of Alaska during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Later, he said of the experience: "It was in the Klondike I found myself."
Wikipedia contributors. "The Call of the Wild." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
