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.

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Don MacGillivray is a professor of history at Cape Breton University.

Captain Alex MacLean: Jack London’s Sea Wolf

The early 1880s witnessed a significant expansion of pelagic sealing in the North Pacific. This industry and the diplomatic, economic and political difficulties it caused continued throughout the 1880s. With the careless slaughter of the herds, the sealing industry declined quickly after 1905. One of the most colourful sailors and sealers of the day was Alex MacLean, the inspiration for the character, Wolf Larsen, in Jack London’s novel, The Sea-Wolf. Originally from Cape Breton Island, MacLean sailed to the Pacific Northwest where he worked for thirty-five years. His achievements and escapades while in the Victoria fleet in the 1880s, laid the foundation of his status as a folk hero. This academic account of his life and his times also reveals the complex world of pelagic sealing.