To Build a Fire

"To Build a Fire" is a short story of American author Jack London.

Plot

A man and his dog are travelling through the tundra of the Klondike region of what is now the Yukon Territory in Canada. The two are returning to camp, where they can have a nice warm meal with "the boys," but the Yukon winter is brutal: zero hours of sunlight in a day and startlingly frigid temperatures. The dog, a husky, walks over a frozen pool until one of its feet slips into the water. The liquid on its legs immediately turns solid, but, using its mouth and with the help of his human companion (who has more experience whipping the canine than aiding it), the dog is able to remove most of the ice and continue on the path.

The man, a newcomer to the area who has probably come as part of the Klondike Gold Rush, recalls the advice of an old-timer from Sulphur Creek: never go out alone when the temperature is colder than -50 degrees Fahrenheit. The man spits, and realizes the spit freezes before it ever hits the ground. At -50, the man recalls, spits freezes upon hitting the ground, so he deduces that the temperature is below -50. The narrator tells that the temperature "was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero. Since the freezing point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of frost obtained." (The last sentence, as well as the date of publication, allows us to deduce that the temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit).

Later on in their trip, the man falls partially into a similar pool of water, and the lower part of one of his legs becomes instantly frozen. He curses his luck, for this will surely delay his arrival at the camp, which is somewhere near Dawson. To unfreeze his leg, he decides to build a fire. He walks under a nearby spruce tree and begins to build a fire with its twigs and bark. However, as he pulls more and more twigs of the tree, the tree begins to shake and eventually dumps a pile of snow on his precious fire, which he had built under the tree out of inexperience and laziness. He realizes this was a costly mistake, as he will certainly lose at least a few toes to frostbite. He takes out his matches to start a second fire, but drops them into the snow. Since his hands are numb and almost entirely useless, he must go through a painstakingly elaborate ordeal to pick them up. The first match he lights falls into the snow and instantly dims. In his second attempt, all the matches catch fire at once. He smells something queer and realizes his hand is burning. He puts the matches down and starts throwing bark onto the pile carelessly. One throw puts a large chunk of moss into the fire, which he removes, but into doing so scatters all the components of the fire so that they soon go out.

The man, his opportunities to build a fire all lost, recalls a story of another man who killed a dog for its warmth. The man, deciding to attempt something similar, calls over his dog in a friendly and warm fashion. The dog walks over in apprehension, as its master's words are usually harsh and threatening. The man gets his arms around the dog for a few moments, but he releases the dog after realizing his hands are unresponsive and useless while the dog is still limber and strong.

The man realizes his death is now inevitable. He makes vain attempts make a run for the camp that always end in his falling after a few hundred feet. He lies down and starts to feel drowsy, realizing a sleep-like death will soon overtake his body. In his delerium he mutters his last words to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek: "You were right, old hoss; you were right." The husky stands around for a while. After smelling death, it howls and trots off on the trail towards the camp.