We are happy today to bring you our third Jack London story here on Just Listen.  

Something in the jagged, icy edges of London’s bitterly cold settings draws us in again and again to discover something unique and powerful in the human spirit, while at the same time revealing to us our utter weakness and fallibility, the crushing knowledge that we just might not make it.

Like many of Jack London's short stories, “The White Silence” takes place in the Yukon. The story chronicles the travels of three people across the Northland Trail, as they try to reach civilization before spring. The story focuses on the fragile relationship between humanity and nature, as well as the fragile link between humans and animals. 

The story’s title is a phrase that London used frequently in his descriptions of the frozen northern landscapes that featured in his stories. London’s Yukon is the great blank page on which the majesty of the human spirit shakes hands with danger, misfortune, and unutterable woe.   Let us go there and watch.  

And now, “The White Silence” by Jack London…we begin….