Jack London is probably best remembered for “The Call of the Wild,” his epic dog story that’s far more than just a story about a dog. Like all of London’s work, it is a parable about the power of the environment. While the novel is set in the ice and snow of the Yukon, the canine protagonist Buck is as much a Californian as his creator, who was born on Third Street in San Francisco to an unwed mother, on Jan. 12, 1876, was raised in Oakland and died at Beauty Ranch, his estate in Glen Ellen, on Nov. 22, 1916.