Jock of the Bushveld

Last night we finally watched the film version of South Africa's legendary book, Jock of the Bushveld. Our friends Johann and Louise lent it to us months ago as a must-see while we are in South Africa. So last night we gathered Lou & Serge up onto the couch for a double date night and popped in the DVD.

Written in 1905 by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, it is the true story of the relationship between Fitzpatrick, an Irish immigrant who came to South Africa to find his fortune in the goldfields of Pilgrim's Rest, and Jock, the runt of a litter of Staffordshire Bull Terriers born in Kruger National Park. Fitzpatrick saves Jock from drowning and the two become inseparable through their adventures in the bushveld. Jock becomes a powerful hunter and protector and Fitzpatrick surely needs it in his new role as a goods driver from the goldfields through the wilds of Kruger to the Mozambique port.

The story reminded me of course of another noble dog book, Jack London's Call of the Wild. Like Jock, the star of this American classic is a powerful dog named Buck. Buck is half St. Bernard and half sheepdog and just like Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick, Buck is saved from mistreatment by John Thornton. Jack London wrote his novel in 1903 after his own experiences in the Alaskan Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush.

Since Fitzpatrick's is a true story, there is actually a "Jock of the Bushveld route" in Mpumalanga which identifies many of the landmarks Fitzpatrick chronicled in the book. Now that we've seen the movie, I will have to look for some of the plaques when we go back to Kruger in August.

I've blogged about it before but I do like to use books as literary guides to the places we travel. We all read The Call of the Wild before our family traveled to Alaska in the summer of 1998 and we followed much of the same trail Buck and Thorton traveled in the book through Juneau and Skagway and up to Whitehorse.

We took a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau and we hiked on the glacier itself. We kayaked in Glacier Bay and cruised up to Skagway where Alex and Nick became Junior Rangers at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. We even took the White Pass & Yukon Route narrow gauge train from Skagway up and over the very same Klondike Trail that London and his fellow prospectors hiked and crossed into the Canadian Yukon.

In Fairbanks we visited a dogsled farm where we met an experienced Iditarod racer and her pack of dogs. It was summer so we couldn't take her dogs out for a spin but we did drive a sled ourselves later one Christmas in Vermont.

kayaking in Glacier Bay

waterfall in Glacier Bay

Nick driving a dogsled in Vermont

It really brings so much more meaning to the experience of travel when you can relate it to a book with larger than life characters such as Jock and Buck, Fitzpatrick and Thorton. Wish we could take Lou & Serge with us on our next trip to Kruger but unlike the bushveld in 1903, now there are no dogs allowed!