Walk the Read
We challenge you to embark on a 10,000-step adventure of literary landmarks.
Categories: Featured Travel Stories
By: Meghan Saar 03/01/2008
Jack London
Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, California, does not memorialize the writer solely in name. It is home to actual spots the author worked and played in.
London purchased Beauty Ranch in 1905, the same year White Fang was published. His home, Wolf House, burned in 1913, but the home his second wife built after his death three years later, House of Happy Walls, is a museum showcasing London’s works, his memorabilia and photographs. Furniture designed by Jack and his wife Charmian is also on display. His grave site is located here, as well, if you want to stop by and pay tribute to him.
He also wrote a road novel fifty years before Kerouac, The Valley of the Moon, that follows Billy and Saxon Roberts of Oakland through California, as they search for land they can farm on their own. The pastoral life depicted in this novel actually reflects that of Glen Ellen.
Walking the Read
Answer London’s Call of the Wild without having to travel all the way to Alaska. Mush into winter at Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe on dog sled tours pulled by Siberian and Alaskan huskies. Okay, so the huskies are doing most of the “walking,” but your feet deserve at least one opportunity for rest!
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Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon at Jack London’s Square in Oakland is a Barbary Coast saloon, made in 1883 from the timbers of a whaling ship, that truly connects with the writer. Owner Jack Heinold remembered the 1891 day London first came in, striking a deal to buy a boat from an oyster pirate French Frank. London sealed the deal, and Heinold laughed at how the 15 year old then stole Frank’s woman—Frank was 30 years his senior! A month before Heinold passed away, he told reporter John C. Higgins in 1933, London “was the finest and best I’ve ever known in fifty years on this spot.”
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