Marshall Latham Bond - Jack London and The Call of The Wild

Jack London and The Call of The Wild

Against the advice of his father, Marshall Bond decided he wanted to participate in the Klondike Gold Rush and managed to get his father to put up financing in a partnership, provided Louis went along to manage the purchases and expenditures. He left from Seattle in company with Josiah Collins. By Alaska Marshall Bond became upset with the handling of his cargo by the ship crew and organized a shift of the destination from Dyea to Skagway.

In Skagway, while waiting for a teamster to carry his supplies, he and other miners became upset by the treatment of the miners by the municipal government, and he and other miner activists overthrew it. The cross streets had no names, and part of what they did was name them after various prominent Alaskans. For the next ten years what is now Fourth Street was named Bond Street after Marshall Bond.

During the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 to 1898, Marshall Bond and his brother Louis Whitford Bond owned a log cabin, storage building and tent ground on a hill overlooking Dawson City, Yukon. One of their tenants during the fall of 1897 and part of the spring of 1898 was a young man who did chores on a labor exchange for one of their tent spaces. This was author Jack London. The main character of the novel The Call of the Wild', Buck, was based on a large St. Bernard/Collie owned by the Bonds. The dog was lent to Jack London by the Bonds for the performance of his work.