I think it is fairly obvious to any reader of this
excellent short story that Jack London is an author who knows his material well, and has
not just researched it but has lived it. Jack London himself in his teens and twenties
advetured extensively on sea and ice, prospecting for gold in the Yukon Territory and
therefore new first hand the dangers of venturing out in sub-zero conditions and the
kind of risks such people took. If we examine the story, it is full of small details
that clearly indicate the way that the author's personal experience shaped his fiction.
Consider the following example:
The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his
head. He remembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and
crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. He would kill the dog and bury his hands
in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build another
fire.
It is clear that this
reference is based on factual knowledge, and indeed this practice was very common among
Arctic explorers. Such details and the realistic description again and again reinforces
the way that London wrote not from the comfort of his armchair alone but based on the
experiences that he himself endured as part of his adventuring
days.
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