Trailing Wolf Tracks & Jack London History

By Michelle Moday
Published: January, 2007 

At the celebration of Jack London’s birthday, have a look at the distinctive wolf tracks in the sidewalk that lead the journey around the Square. Along the trail, these historic markers highlight facts about Jack London, the City and Port of Oakland and its waterfront. There are also hundreds of permanent bronze wolf tracks sponsored by individuals and community organizations commemorating persons or events important to them.

London’s birthday celebration begins at Jack London’s Cabin at the corner of Water St. and Webster St., next to the Last Chance Saloon. London’s cabin was built in the Yukon during the gold rush in 1897; and, on the ceiling, find the notes in London’s handwriting. Immediately after, the celebration continues aboard the historic U.S.S. Potomac – Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidential yacht, also known as the Floating Whitehouse.

Why wolf tracks? Begin by discovering his world-famous novels: White Fang, The Call of the Wild, and The Sea Wolf, where, in chapter one, a nervous sea captain rides through the fog as a passenger on the Sausalito ferry in the fog (circa 1904).