Alex MacLean was the inspiration for the title character in Jack London’s bestselling novel The Sea-Wolf. Originally from Cape Breton, MacLean sailed to the Pacific side of North America when he was twenty-one and worked there for thirty-five years as a sailor and sealer. His achievements and escapades while in the Victoria fleet in the 1880s laid the foundation for his status as a folk hero. But this biography reveals more than the construction of a legend. Don MacGillivray opens a window onto the sealing dispute brought the United States and Britain to the brink of war, with Canadian sealing interests frequently enmeshed in espionage, scientific debate, diplomatic negotiations, and vexing questions of maritime and environmental law.
388 pages
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Cape Breton and Going Down to the Sea, 1858-82
2 Pelagic Sealing: Victoria, 1883-87
3 Conflict in the North Pacific, 1888-89
4 Home Port San Francisco, 1890
5 The James Hamilton Lewis and the Russians, 1891
6 The Japanese Coast and the North Pacific, 1892-95
7 The Bering Sea Claims Commission Hearings and Percy Sherwood, 1896
8 The South Pacific Expedition, 1897-98
9 The Klondike, 1898-1903
10 Poaching with the Carmencita, 1904-05
11 The Carmencita Returns to Victoria, 1905
12 Setting the Record Straight: Vancouver, 1906-08
13 The Final Years: Vancouver, 1909-14
14 The Legend of Alex MacLean
Notes
Bibliography
Index