He then signed aboard a boat called the Sophia Sutherland, bound for Japan and the Bering Sea. After returning from the voyage in 1893, Jack won first prize in a contest for best descriptive article about his experiences on his trip. (Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin 18).
Jack then began to be interested in the plight of the underprivileged and working classes, and so he joined a group of militant workers, who were going to Washington to protest the wretched working conditions in the country, caused by the Depression of 1894. Jack never made it to Washington though, he deserted this so-called "Industrial Army" in Hannibal, Missouri, and for a time he traveled around the country as a hobo. At Niagara Falls Canada, Jack was arrested for vagrancy and sentenced to the Erie County Penitentiary. He was released after thirty days, and he quickly caught the first train heading west, arriving eventually in Oakland California.
It was soon after returning to California that Jack became seriously interested in politics, and as a result, he joined an Oakland branch of the Socialist Labor Party. Then soon afterward, Jack enrolled as a student at the University of California at Berkeley, .
3.
where he attempted to further his studies in the most influential scientific and philosophic theories of the late nineteenth century. Darwinism, Social Darwinism, Nietzscheism, and .
Marxisim where very prevalent in this time period, and Jack became overtaken with these theories that he related his existence on this planet to. (Lundberg, Murray. "Online Posting" 7 July. 1999).
Jack soon became restless in school, and he left the University during his second semester as a student. From California he caught a boat called the Umatilla, and went north to the Alaskan Klondike, to search for gold. He never accomplished this goal, but he did return with many fascinating ideas. In fact, two of his most famous novels, The Call of the Wild and White Fang, are set from his experiences while he was in Alaska.