Grant Wiley – All Gold Canyon (outside reading)


            I just finished the short story by Jack London called All Gold Canyon. The story focuses on a man in search of gold in California around the time of the gold rush. As most of Jack London’s writing, it is a very descriptive look into the life of a gold prospector. The prospector finds a vein of gold that is fuller than any he has seen before. He continues to follow it as far as he can until it becomes the most concentrated before he begins digging. Throughout the story, London does a great job describing his lust for the gold and his simple life as a prospector. He explains the connection between the prospector and the wilderness in an interesting way. He has respect for the wild, but he also wants to exploit it deep-down. His motivation for being in California is not that of John Muir. This leaves an interesting back and forth in which the prospector communicates with the vein of gold as if it were a person that he could talk to. The story reaches its climax when a robber tries to take the gold vein from the prospector and the prospector ends up killing the robber. Sadly, after surviving the attack, the greedy prospector ends up dying after attempting to dig up the gold too fast. In the end, the power of the wild is too much for the prospector. He didn’t appreciate its power and was simply trying to exploit it. 

            I greatly appreciated this short story with the knowledge that I have learned in this class. I was able to better understand the commentary that London was making on the relationship that humans have to the wilderness and the way that we attempt to control it. Finally, it made me reflect on the exploitation of the wilderness that has occurred throughout the history of humankind. I hope that I can change the way that I approach the wilderness and approach it in a way of I-Thou rather than I-It like the prospector did. 

-  March 11, 2021

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