Jack London Yukon Quotes

Sitka Charley started. There had been more than one shot, yet there was but one other rifle in the party. He gave a fleeting glance at the men who lay so quietly, smiled viciously at the wisdom of the trail, and hurried on to meet the Men of the Yukon.

So summer waited for open water, and the tardy Yukon took to stretching of days and cracking its stiff joints. Now an air-hole ate into the ice, and ate and ate; or a fissure formed, and grew, and failed to freeze again. Then the ice ripped from the shore and uprose bodily a yard. But still the river was loth to loose its grip. It was a slow travail, and man, used to nursing nature with pigmy skill, able to burst waterspouts and harness waterfalls, could avail nothing against the billions of frigid tons which refused to run down the hill to Bering Sea.

Often the man felt that he had bucked against the very essence of life—the unconquerable essence that swept the hawk down out of the sky like a feathered thunderbolt, that drove the great gray goose across the zones, that hurled the spawning salmon through two thousand miles of boiling Yukon flood.

Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped down the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for Dyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year. Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into the country was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was travelling light.

Freddo e grigio, il giorno era arrivato ed era esageratamente freddo e grigio quando l'uomo si spostò dalla pista sul Fiume Yukon per risalire l'elevato argine di terra dove una traccia poco battuta sbucava in direzione est per attraversare la folta foresta di abeti rossi. L'argine era ripido e una volta in cima l'uomo si fermò ansimando, raccontandosi che voleva controllare l'orario. Nove in punto. Niente sole, neppure un barlume, nonostante non ci fosse una nuvola in cielo. La giornata era limpida, eppure ogni cosa appariva come se fosse avvolta da un impalpabile sudario, un'ombra sottile che rabbuiava il giorno – e questo per l'assenza del sole. La cosa non preoccupava l'uomo. Lui era abituato alla mancanza di sole. Erano passati diversi giorni da che l'aveva visto l'ultima volta e sapeva che ne sarebbero trascorsi altrettanti prima che, risalendo da sud, la gioiosa sfera facesse capolino all'orizzonte per rituffarsi lontana dalla vista.