By Craig Froehle and John Swain
It had to happen sooner or later. If you've been following our follies, you've probably noticed that we've talked about sex, politics, and religion. So when the subject of this month's column came up, we did what anyone else does in a conversational lull, we turned to the weather. This month, we turn our attention to the controversial subject that's plaguing everyone in the northern latitudes: winter. For those readers who dwell in the southern latitudes, we kindly ask you to file this column away and read it in six months when the subject's a little closer to home [Read it now, anyway. It'll be good for you. --DG]. For the readership in the equatorial climes, we have all kinds of nasty suggestions for you and your balmy breezes, but being a family-oriented publication, we elected to exercise editorial restraint.
Winter in literature
Few writers have captured the imagination of readers with winter narrative like Jack London. There's no denying that Laura Ingalls Wilder can give you a decent plains blizzard or two and Robert Frost can talk about a snowy New England evening, but when it comes right down to describing bone-chilling, life-threatening, gonna-have-to-eat-my-dog-to stay-alive cold, Jack London is your only choice!
Born in 1876 out of wedlock to Flora Wellman, a rebellious daughter of a well-to-do family, and a nomadic astrologer and lecturing "Professor", London's early years were less than idyllic. Eight months after his birth, London's mother married an extremely mild-tempered widower who proved little match for the volatility of his new bride. Prodded by Flora's fierce ambition for wealth, the new family suffered endlessly through a variety of "get rich quick" schemes. By the time Jack became a young man the family was destitute and survived by moving from one squalid cottage to another in the San Francisco, California area.
London's life was one of pointed juxtapositions. He was a rather celebrated oyster pirate, robbing the great private oyster beds of San Francisco Bay, but later switched his allegiances and became a member of the Fish Patrol to police his former pirate comrades. While fiercely bright, he often sank into terrible moods of self-destruction. He once attempted suicide by drowning and was only saved by his accomplished skills as a swimmer when he sobered up enough to realize the permanence of his actions. After a brief career as seal hunter on board ships in the North Pacific, London returned to San Francisco and focused his creative urges on writing. In 1897, gold was discovered in the Klondike and Jack, enormously bitter and frustrated with his writing attempts to date, joined his brother-in-law on a journey to Alaska. It is difficult to tell which motivated him the most: the lure of gold, the escape from the urban hardships of the 1890's, or the failure of his writings. What is certain is that while London's journey failed to produce the conventional wealth he sought, he returned a far richer than he left. Of the trip, he wrote, "It was in the Klondike that I found myself. There, you get your perspective. I got mine."
