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[the first lines] "Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness--a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild." (part 1, ch. 1)
From the beginning we are invited to take a closer look at the background where the story unfolds. It looks like a perfect Darwinian world, and London's descriptions owes much to Darwin, who explained the theory of the development of life on Earth, a natural and fierce competition far scarce resources.
It brought misfortune for both animals and humans who sufered because of famine and freezing cold.
"Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost." (part 1, chapter 1)
"Bill waved his hand at it threateningly and shouted loudly; but the animal betrayed no fear... It still regarded them with the merciless wistfulness of hunger. They were meat, and it was hungry; and it would like to go in and eat them if it dared." (part 1, ch. 2)
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