Metaphorical Gold: Mining the Gold Rush for Stories

Introduction

Bound for the Klondike gold fields. Chilkoot Pass, Alaska.

Credit: Image courtesy of American Memory.

… the Yukon provided the metaphorical gold for his [Jack London's] first stories…"
—Dr. Clarice Stasz, from The Jack London Collection,
a link from the EDSITEment resource The Center for Liberal Arts.

The lure of gold is strong. The first nuggets of the Klondike Stampede were brought into the town of Forty Mile on August 20, 1898. Two days later, the town was deserted, claims were being staked out all around the original site, and the Gold Rush was on! Despite the distance and the difficult conditions, thousands of Americans traveled to the Yukon willing to test their mettle in hopes of striking it rich.

One of those who came to the Klondike was Jack London, soon to be an internationally famous author. What he sought in the Yukon was not gold, however, but rather the adventure and "the metaphorical gold for his first stories." London's experiences in the Yukon provided him not only with an appropriate setting for the life and death struggles he wanted to depict, but also with sufficient local color to lend authenticity to his writing.

By "mining" online databases for primary texts and period photographs, your students can explore the Klondike Stampede, and, like London, can glean from their visit sufficient period details to help them create their own narratives based on the Gold Rush. If time does not permit students to write their own stories, the teacher can select stand-alone sections from this lesson that deal with the history of the Gold Rush era. While the emphasis of this lesson is on history and research rather than literature, selections from Jack London's The Call of the Wild are used to provide focus and structure for students' research in online databases of primary sources, and to serve as models of vivid narrative prose for students' own stories.

Note: Students and teachers who have completed all or parts of this stand-alone lesson and who would like to learn more about Jack London may wish to explore the complementary EDSITEment lesson, Jack London's The Call of the Wild: "Nature Faker"?, which explores in depth how his novel, The Call of the Wild, responds to the technical challenge of writing from an animal's perspective without humanizing or sentimentalizing.

Guiding Questions

What experiences awaited the tens of thousands of hopeful prospectors drawn by the discovery of gold in the Yukon?
How can students use details drawn from their research on primary source materials, and examples drawn from Jack London's vivid narrative prose, to add color and authenticity to their own stories based on the Alaskan Gold Rush era?

Learning Objectives

After completing this lesson, students will be able to:

Relate information about the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush, describing how Americans traveled to the gold fields and how they fared once they arrived.
Use authentic historical details in their own stories based on the Alaska Gold Rush.
Use Jack London's vivid narrative prose as a model to develop varied sentence structure and length in their own stories.

Preparation Instructions

Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
Download Mining the Klondike Gold for Stories: Worksheets, available here as a PDF. Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class.
This lesson should work well with students whether or not they have read The Call of the Wild. It would also work well as a prequel to reading the novel. If time does not permit students to write an original story using period details from the Gold Rush, the sections of the lesson dealing with fiction writing can be disregarded by teachers wanting to concentrate only on history and research.
The complete lesson prepares students for the writing of a story of historical fiction. Students begin by learning the basic historical facts about the Klondike Gold Rush. To gain a concrete sense of life during the Gold Rush period, students will match period photographs (drawn from an extensive online archive) with selections from The Call of the Wild; this activity will provide students with an introduction to London's vivid imagery and an invitation to use vivid language when they write stories of their own. Next, student groups will research specific aspects of the Gold Rush and share the information with the class. Two optional activities follow. Through a sentence-combining exercise, students can compare two passages from London and explore one of London's characteristic sentence types as prewriting exercises, encouraging them to vary sentence structure and length in their stories. Students can then create their own tales of the Gold Rush by "adopting" a character from a historical database of Klondiker names and information and telling a story about him/her adding historical authenticity and local color from census information, first-hand accounts, and period photographs.
For background on the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush, consult the following resources:
- The Klondike Gold Rush, on the Alaska Collections of the University of Washington Libraries' Digital Collections, a link from the EDSITEment resource Links to the Past
- Gold is Discovered in the Klondike, on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Links to the Past
The Alaska Collections of the University of Washington Libraries' Digital Collections, available via a link from the EDSITEment resource Links to the Past, contain three searchable databases of period photographs, including the Frank La Roche Photographs and William E. Meed Photographs. Its third collection, Photos of Eric A Hegg, is the largest and has a useful map illustrating predefined search categories. Click on the map icons for thumbnail photographs in categories including White Pass, Chilkoot Pass, Women, and Transportation. Click on the thumbnails for larger images. Students can also conduct keyword searches. With 50 pictures for White Pass, 46 for Chilkoot Pass, and 34 related to dogsleds, the Photos of Eric A Hegg site is an exceptionally rich resource.
Though Jack London was a prolific writer, he was also a careful writer. He varied his sentence structure throughout, as will be demonstrated in Activity 4. One characteristic type of London sentence combines ideas to add complexity that creates tension, paints a rich picture, and/or captures the essence of an action sequence in a single snapshot. Students can use this element of London's as a model for their own writing, as they attempt to use a greater variety of sentence structures.
An effective exercise to facilitate students' ability to use a variety of sentence structures is sentence combining, in which basic sentences (generally containing unnecessary repetitions) are combined into more complex structures. The exercise included as part of this lesson is an optional prewriting step before students begin writing their own stories. Each set of sentence "germs" in the "The Call of the Wild's Sentences: Sentence Combining Exercise," on pages 5-6 of the PDF, Mining the Klondike Gold for Stories: Worksheets originated as part of one sentence in The Call of the Wild. Students attempt to combine each set of simple sentences into one sentence of their own, without reference to London's original. The exercise is set up in approximate order of complexity from the simplest to the most complex. All or part of the 14 exercises can be assigned to individual students or student groups; the whole class can work together with the teacher; students can complete as many as they can independently; or specific assignments can be made on an individual basis.

A critical part of the sentence combining exercise is the sharing of sentences to show the variety of solutions. There are no correct answers, just different approaches. As a result, most teachers who use sentence combining never offer an authoritative "solution" to a particular problem. In this case, students can examine London's original if desired, but even it should be regarded as just another solution. The source sentences for the exercise are available on "The Call of the Wild's Sentences: London's Combined Sentences" on page 7 of the PDF, Mining the Klondike Gold for Stories: Worksheets. To help your students become aware of the possibilities, it is counterproductive to concentrate on errors they may make or to regard any particular solution as best.
For further reading for students, consult the Recommended Reading List provided here as a PDF.

Lesson Activities

Activity 1. The Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush: Background for Students
Activity 2. Images of the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush in Words and Photographs

Activity 1. The Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush: Background for Students

Show your students, in order, the following photographs from the University of Washington Digital Collections, a link from the EDSITEment resource Links to the Past. Have them brainstorm what each image reveals about the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush.

Tell students they will be gathering images and information (often from first-hand sources) about the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush as research for writing original stories of historical fiction. Provide some background from Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, an online exhibit of The National Park Service, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Links to the Past. In particular, read with your students:

For somewhat more in-depth information, share either of the sources listed under "Preparing to Teach This Lesson." The site Alaska's Gold, a link from the EDSITEment resource Links to the Past, is a very rich source of primary source material and information, aimed primarily at students.

Activity 2. Images of the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush in Words and Photographs

Though The Call of the Wild does not dwell on the historical facts of the Klondike Gold Rush, London added enough genuine details—often using vivid imagery—to lend authenticity and color to his text. Challenge students to use the search functions of the online databases Frank La Roche Photographs, William E. Meed Photographs, and Photos of Eric A Hegg, available on the University of Washington Digital Collections, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed websites Links to the Past, to locate photographs that could appropriately illustrate the passages from The Call of the Wild on the handout "Images from The Call of the Wild" on pages 1-2 of the PDF.

Here's an example from Chapter 7 of The Call of the Wild. The passage

…a shallow placer in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing pan. They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets

could be matched with the photograph Five prospectors panning for gold in a creek, Alaska, 1897. If possible, print out the picture and display it (or post it on the computer) with the related passage from The Call of the Wild as a caption.

After you distribute the handout, read over the passages with the class. Help students identify key words they can use as search items and then give them the opportunity to work with the databases, individually or in small groups. As students locate photographs, they should write the captions and URLs under the relevant excerpt on the handout. If possible, enable students to share some of their matching images by printing images or displaying them on the computer. NOTE: The related handout "Photos Matched with Images from The Call of the Wild," on pages 3-4 of the PDF matches photographs with the passages and provides their URLs. There may, of course, be other photos that match any particular passage.

Remind students that they will be writing stories set in the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush. Challenge them to make sure there are passages in the story that could be represented well by a period photograph. In other words, students should include authentic visual images in their stories. If practical, encourage students to illustrate their stories with one or more well-chosen photographs.

Extending The Lesson

Students can research and draw comparisons between the Klondike Gold Rush and the California Gold Rush using the EDSITEment resource Gold Rush.
Robert Service, like Jack London, used historical information about the Klondike Gold Rush to add color to his writing. However, Service's work differs greatly from London's. The National Postal Museum, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Links to the Past, offers an article about Robert Service and Jack London that includes a link to information about Service and texts of some of his poems.
Now that students have some background knowledge of the Klondike Gold Rush, they would benefit from reading and discussing London's Klondike tales, many of which are available online as part of The Jack London Collection, a link from the EDSITEment resource The Center for Liberal Arts.
The Jack London Collection, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website The Center for Liberal Arts is an excellent resource for everything London. If desired, students can complete research about London, including reading some of his letters.
The EDSITEment resource Links to the Past offers a series of lessons entitled "Teaching With Historic Places." One such lesson is Skagway: Gateway to the Klondike.
The EDSITEment-reviewed website Digital Classroom offers a lesson entitled Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: Alaska Migration.
Do your students wonder what would it be like to retrace the steps of a Klondiker today? What is the Klondike Gold Rush area like now? The Seattle Times: Klondike Special Report, a link from the EDSITEment resource Links to the Past, attempts to answer those questions. The report is described as follows: "Traveling north by ferry, foot and kayak, reporter Ross Anderson takes with him a historical 'companion,' the late Mont Hawthorne."