White Fang: Read and Watch

White Fang

The story begins before the wolf-dog hybrid is born, with two men and their sled dog team on a journey to deliver the coffin of Lord Alfred to a remote town named Fort McGurry in the higher area of the Yukon Territory. The men, Bill and Henry, are stalked by a large pack of starving wolves over the course of several days. Finally, after all of their dogs and Bill have been eaten, Henry is rescued at the last moment; the wolf pack scatters when they hear the large group of people coming.
The story then follows the pack, which has been robbed of its last prey. When the pack finally brings down a moose, the famine is ended; they eventually split up, and the story now follows a she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. One Eye claimed her after defeating and killing a younger rival. The she-wolf gives birth to a litter of five pups by the Mackenzie River, and all but one die from hunger. One Eye is killed by a lynx while trying to rob her den for food for the she-wolf and her pup; his mate later discovers his remains near the lynx's den. The surviving pup and the she-wolf are left to fend for themselves. Shortly afterward, the she-wolf kills all the lynx's kittens to feed her pup, prompting the lynx to track her down, and a vicious fight breaks out. The she-wolf eventually kills the lynx, but suffers severe injury; the lynx carcass is devoured over a period of seven days as the she-wolf recovers from her injuries.
One day, the pup comes across five indigenous people, and the she-wolf comes to his rescue. One man, Grey Beaver, recognizes the she-wolf as his late brother's wolf dog, Ktiche, who left during a famine. Grey Beaver's brother is dead, so he takes Ktiche and her pup and names the cub "White Fang." White Fang has a harsh life in the native camp; the current puppy pack, seeing him as a wolf, immediately attacks him. The Natives protect him, but the pups never accept him, and the pups' leader, Lip-Lip, singles him out for persecution. White Fang grows to become a savage, callous, morose, solitary, and deadly fighter, "the enemy of his kind."
At this time, White Fang is separated from his mother, who is sold off to another Native camp by Three Eagles. He earns the respect of Grey Beaver when he saves his son MitSah from a group of boys seeking revenge for White Fang attacking one of them for trying to beat him for no reason. When a famine occurs, he runs away into the woods and encounters his mother, Kiche, only for her to chase him away, for she has a new litter of pups and has forgotten him. He also encounters Lip-Lip, whom he fights and kills before returning to the camp.
When White Fang is five years old, he is taken to Fort Yukon, so that Grey Beaver can trade with the gold-hunters. There, a malicious dog-fighter named "Beauty" Smith connives to get Grey Beaver addicted to whiskey, and then when he is drunk sell White Fang to him. White Fang defeats all opponents pitted against him, including several wolves and a lynx, until a bulldog called Cherokee is brought in by a faro-dealer named Tim Keenan to fight him. Cherokee has the upper hand in the fight when he grips the skin and fur of White Fang's neck and begins to throttle him. White Fang nearly suffocates, but is rescued when a rich mining expert, Weedon Scott, stops the fight, and forcibly buys White Fang from Beauty Smith.
Scott attempts to tame White Fang, and after a long, patient effort, he succeeds. When Scott attempts to return to California alone, White Fang pursues him, and Scott decides to take the dog with him back home. In Sierra Vista, White Fang must adjust to the laws of the estate. At the end of the book, an escaped convict, Jim Hall, tries to kill Scott's father, Judge Scott, for sentencing him to prison for a crime he did not commit, not knowing that Hall was "railroaded." White Fang kills Hall and is nearly killed himself, but survives. As a result, the women of Scott's estate name him "the Blessed Wolf." The story ends with White Fang relaxing in the sun with the puppies he has fathered with the sheep-dog Collie.

White Fang

In 1898, during the Klondike Gold Rush, a young explorer named Jack Conroy arrives in Alaska from San Francisco in search his deceased father's mining claim with assistance from two mushers named Alex Larson and Clarence "Skunker" Thurston. While on their journey, the trio are stalked by a wolf pack. One night, while resting at a campfire, a wolf lures one of the sled dogs away from the group. Another wolf then chases the dog into the woods. In the ensuing fight, a female wolfdog named Kiche is mortally wounded by Skunker. Skunker tries to save his dog, but is killed by the pack. Later that night, the wolves return but are scared off by Jack and Alex using burning branches. The following morning, the wolves attack the two men, but they are saved when another sled team arrives.
Kiche hobbles back to her den, and her cub remains by her side. She eventually dies, leaving the pup to fend for himself. Jack and Alex reach a town where they plan to stay for the winter. A Hän band, meanwhile, find the pup, and the chief named Grey Beaver, realizing he is a wolfdog (a hybrid of a wolf and dog) from the color of his teeth, names him White Fang.
As spring comes, Jack and Alex resume their quest, but stop off at the Hän settlement. Grey Beaver explains that White Fang has been raised to obey, not to be friendly, but Jack seeks to change that. Jack's chance comes when he is attacked by a grizzly bear, who chases him until he takes cover under a woodpile. White Fang, seeing Jack in danger, intervenes and defends him from the bear, leading to him having a standoff with the animal which ends with the bear leaving. Afterwards, Jack and Alex later leave the settlement.
Not long after, White Fang is unfairly traded to Beauty Smith, a sadistic dogfighter and business rival of Alex's whose associates had previously stolen Jack's money; he blackmails Grey Beaver for the wolfdog, asserting that ownership of a wolf is considered illegal. Smith and his gang train and abuse White Fang into becoming a ferocious killing machine in order to enter him into illegal dogfights.
White Fang eventually meets his match in a brutal fight against a bulldog, but Jack happens upon the fight and intervenes in the nick of time; freeing White Fang while also swearing to expose Smith for his crimes. Having earlier reached his father's claim and begun the work of digging for gold, Jack returns with White Fang to the Larson homestead, seeking to transform White Fang's vicious and territorial nature.
Jack's attempts to tame White Fang eventually succeed, and the two develop a close bond. Alex and Jack mine for gold, striking it rich with the help of White Fang. One morning, Jack travels to town to claim proper ownership of the gold when Luke, one of Smith's colleagues, notices White Fang. Seeking retaliation and planning to steal the gold for himself, Smith and his men attack the Larson homestead with guns and set it on fire. White Fang attacks Tinker, who accidentally discharges his gun and wounds Luke. White Fang eventually subdues Smith until he is ordered by Jack to back down. Jack and Alex take Smith and his men prisoner, forcing them at gunpoint back into Klondike City, where they are turned over to the authorities.
Alex and his wife, Belinda, offer to take Jack back to San Francisco, but he lets Jack know that city life is no place for a wolf; he must let White Fang run free in the wild. Though White Fang cannot understand why Jack is trying to leave him, Jack's efforts by using a stick (which is White Fang's worst fear when he was under Smith) succeed in scaring the wolfdog off. Later, just as he is boarding the ship back to San Francisco, Jack realizes that his rightful place is in the Yukon and decides to stay behind alone and live off the land; Alex congratulates him by saying that it is what Jack's father would have wanted. After a short time, White Fang returns to the cabin site and happily reunites with Jack.