To Build a Fire and Other Stories

To Build a Fire and Other Short Stories By Jack London "To Build a Fire" is a short story by American author Jack London, published in two different versions of in 1902 and 1908. The 1908 story has become an often anthologized classic; the 1902 story describes a similar situation but has a different, less famous plot. The 1908 "To Build a Fire" is an oft-cited example of the naturalist movement that portrays the conflict of man vs. nature. It also reflects what London learned in the Yukon Territory. On an extremely cold winter morning (−75 °F), an unnamed man leaves the Yukon Trail after being warned of the dangers of the trip by locals. With nine hours of hiking ahead of him, the man is expecting to meet his associates at a mining claim in Henderson Creek that evening. The man is accompanied only by a large husky dog, whose instincts tell it that the weather is too cold for traveling. However, the weather does not deter the man, a relative newcomer to the Yukon, even though the water vapor in the man's exhaled breaths and the saliva from the tobacco he is chewing have frozen his mouth shut. As he hikes along a creek, he takes care to avoid pockets of unfrozen water hidden beneath thin layers of ice. He stops to build a fire and thaw out so he can eat his lunch, but after he begins hiking again, he breaks through the ice and soaks his feet and lower legs.