Part I opens as London vividly describes the "wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild." Two men, Henry and Bill, struggle to pull the long, narrow coffin of Lord Alfred on a dog sled through the cold, desolate terrain. Dressed in fur and leather, their faces are completely covered in frozen crystals. Making the setting bleaker, the men are being pursued by a pack of hungry wolves. Down to only three cartridges for their guns, the travelers are unable to shoot at the wolves, whose behavior is becoming more brazen. Bill voices concern to Henry about an extra dog at feeding time, who appears out of nowhere and blends in with the six regular sled dogs. The next morning the men find one dog missing, lured away by the wolves. A dog that both men agree is not very smart.
As Bill and Henry travel through the frozen, snow covered territory they notice the wolves following a little closer every day. Building fires at night to keep warm and to keep the wolves at bay, the men sense the animals closing in slowly but surely every day and every night.
The next morning as Bill is feeding the dogs he notices the wolf (a she-wolf) amidst the sled dogs and is able to land a blow with a club. The following morning the men find another sled dog, Frog, gone. Unlike Fatty, the first dog to disappear, Frog was "no fool dog" and also the "strongest of the bunch." The men eat a very gloomy breakfast, harness the sled and repeat another day across the frozen Northland. After dinner, however, they decide to tie the dogs to stakes with leather straps to prevent another dog from running away to certain death. As they settle down for the evening the dogs become agitated and Bill and Henry look up to see the she-wolf wandering through the camp, eyeing the dogs. She is a decoy for the wolf pack, remarks Henry, luring the sled dogs away as food for the pack. After much discussion, the men decide it would be prudent to use some of the remaining ammunition to take care of the troublesome she-wolf.
Left with only three dogs, the men start out the next morning only to meet more catastrophe as the sled overturns on a bad price of trail. Stuck between a tree trunk and a large rock, the men are forced to unleash the dogs to straighten the sled.
The wolf was staring at Brian, and Brian was staring at the wolf. Brian stood there staring at the wolf until the wolf turned its head and walked away in the opposite direction. The next day Brian decides to go hunt for some real meat, with his self-constructed bow and arrow. He sees a flock of birds sitting next to the lake. He pulls back the arrow, but the bow breaks in half. The wood wasn’t strong
According to the people the elk and deer were plentiful in the Black Hills, it was late and the hunters decided to make camp in a secluded narrow path, before they went to sleep they prepared their weapons. While they were all sleeping a giant snake encircled the camp, one of the hunter woke up at first he thought he was dreaming; so he closed his eye and opened them again realizing it was real he woke the other hunters. Neither of the hunters has ever seen such a huge snake. It all seemed like a bad dream to them; they were huddled together in confusion deciding on what they were going to do next. They finally came to a decision that they would jump over it. They gathered their stuff and threw it over first, then youngest to oldest they jumped next. Except the youngest one was afraid to jump first so he let the others go before him. At last the youngest hunter jumped he got halfway over when the snake lifted its head. The hunter landed on the ground, he was unconscious and the snake just looked at him. When the young hunter, woke the snake left, the young hunter had told them what the snake said; some hunters thought he was just messing around but others believe him. The snake told that they are to travel north to east, until they come to Flat River. Then they are to follow it into a low valley. Once they find a single lodge with a red door. They are going to the door they will
Old Dan is a special character in the book because he couldn't leave without his sister Little Ann. He wouldn't go with Billy or anyone unless he went with his sister. The dogs turned out to be very good friends and hunted together and protected each other. They had to be trained to hunt first though. After they
Billy is coming home from work one day when suddenly he hears some dogs up the street fighting. He goes to check it out and finds them picking on a redbone hound. He saves the dog and cares for it through the night. It reminds him of his childhood. When Billy was ten years old he lived on a farm in the Ozark Mountains of northeastern Oklahoma. He wanted two good coonhounds very badly, he called it “puppy love”, but his papa could not afford to buy him the dogs. For many months, Billy tries to content himself with some rodent traps his papa gives him, but he still wants a dog. Then one day he finds a sportsman’s catalog in an abandoned campsite. In it he sees an ad for good hounds, at $25 each. He decides he wants to save $50 and order himself two hounds. Billy works hard, selling fruit and bait to fishermen, and gathering fruit that he sells to his grandfather at his store. Finally, he saves enough money and gives it to his grandfather to order the dogs for him and asks him to keep it s secret. When a notice comes that they have arrived at the mail depot in the nearby town of Tahlequah, they decide to go into town the next week. That night Billy decides he can not wait any longer. He packs himself a little food, and heads of for town following the river through the woods. He walks all night, and finally reaches town in the morning. The people in town laugh and stare at the young hillbilly, but it does not bother Billy he is there on a mission to get his dogs. He finally collects his dogs and walks back out of town with their small heads sticking out of his bag. Some schoolchildren mob around him and knock him down, but the town sheriff rescues him. The sheriff is impressed with Billy’s determination, and says he has grit. That, night Billy camped in a cave with his two puppies. They wake up in the middle of the night to hear the call of a mountain lion. Billy builds a fire to keep them safe, while the bigger of the two dogs, the male, barks into the night air.
of the wolves and finds that they are more than the savage and merciless hunters
The novel starts on Judge Miller’s property in Santa Clara Valley. Buck is the king of his domain and everyone knows it - from the lowly house dogs to the Judge’s sons. However, a gardener with a gambling problem soon ends Buck’s relaxed life. He sells Buck in order to obtain more money; Buck is sent west to be a sled dog and is cruelly mistreated along the way.
The dog waits and waits until the next morning and then when he starts to lose hope and it
Suddenly, they noticed something was passing by them in a distance of a half a mile. ?We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north.? It was very strange to see another human/carriage on ice. It was a shock to the crew to see a single man on sled drag by dogs through Northern Sea. Comparing to a well equipped ship, the sled looked like a deadly ride. As mentioned earlier you could only see the endless ice surrounding them and they couldn?t believe that a single man would travel far from the Big Land. However, the man on a sled was a gigantic stature and most likely he was a strong and a brave man.
Carter, Angela. "The Company of Wolves." Folk and Fairy Tales. Eds. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. 3rd Edition. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2002.
The characters of Hunters in the Snow are more human than most characters found in fiction. Tobias Wolff did not go for an outlandish approach to repeat Mark Twain in his quote “Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” Kenny, Frank, and Tubs have skeletons in their closet just like any other people. Although these three men are somewhat terrible people in their own way they are still people. The most innocent of these men is Tubs. Tubs, overweight and sensitive, attempts to maintain a clear conscience by justifying his actions no matter how
In Where the Red Fern Grows, Billy Colman, our country boy devoted to his dogs, has gone through very tough times to get to where he is now. He worked very hard for a long time to get his dogs. With his dogs, he had gone out to hunt many times and had lots of adventures and relationships out in the wild. Old Dan had the guts to fight the savage animals with broad muscles and big teeth. Little Ann had the brains to be smart about hunting coons even though she is small for a hound. But because of how good his dogs were at hunting, some people were jealous. Not many people are very good at hunting with dogs. Others were just making fun of him because he was different from everybody. Even nature took its course on Billy. But that did not stop Billy
... at these low temperatures and tries to hold back. The man ushers on and because of his foolish ego, he falls victim to it and freezes to death. In this story, the man’s arrogant choice to counter the dangerous terrain of the Yukon reveals that nature cannot be tamed under any circumstances. “The animal, a creature of instinct untainted by pride, is better adapted to the environment than the man” (Welsh).
Jim Kellum, tells the story of when he was a teen in the Boy Scouts. He learned to survive in the wilderness and how to withstand the cold harsh temperatures. Later on when he was in the armed forces, he and another man were deployed to the Russian tundra to guard a downed bomber. Their instructions were to keep the plane secure from the Russians until help arrived to retrieve the bombs. During the night the weather became unbearably frigid. The wind whipped so hard it was like an icy knife through their bones. The two of them were all alone in this barren snow desert with a small amount of supplies and the continual threat of wolves that inhabited the area. Mr. Jim had to fire warning shots into the darkness to keep them away and to let their presence be made known to the Russians. He said that the only reason that the two of them survived the night was because of the wilderness survival training he was taught in Boy Scouts. Knowing these valuable skills of building a snow shelter, fire, and keeping warm in the worst climates gave me the pleasure of listening to his many exciting stories of the
Jake, Lucy’s neighbor was a well-educated kid. He was 15 years old and lives in an old timber house with his parents. Jake’s father was a farmer and had lived in the area since he was a lad. The area seemed to be haunted since creepy tales about all sorts of beasts was told. People even claimed that they were awakened some nights by a howling. Mostly people believed that it was a feral dog but Jakes father incised that it was a wolf, a ghost wolf. He was sure since he had seen a wolf in the forest when he was in Jake’s age, but none believed him. He kept telling his son about the wolf and Jake wanted to find out the truth. Lucy knew about Jake’s curiosity, at the same time as she decided to escape from her unbearable father. So she lied to get Jake by her side on the endless escape from the futureless community. She said that she knew where the wolf’s lair was. Jake got even more curious and joined her wolf hunting-adventure.
He was so descriptive on each step that one could picture the author climbing the glacier. Stickeen kept on following the author without any fuss. They had to jump over the cliffs which were done by Stickeen bravely. He never complained and was happy and eager to follow the author without causing any obstruction. It looked as if the author derived inspiration from the dog. In this story the author is very clear about the faithfulness and the endurance that a dog can go through without any