"To Build a Fire" Summary

An unnamed man was traveling along the Yukon river, making his way toward a miner camp, where his
friends were. It was 9:00 AM, but the sun had not risen, and it would not rise that day; with no sun, and
being the middle of winter, the miner assumed, it was around fifty degrees below zero. It was his first
year in the area,
"He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter."
The weather became so cold that his spit cracked when it hit the cold air, and he had a sizeable amber-
colored icicle stuck to his beard from the saliva from his chew tobacco. The man was traveling with his
dog, a grey wolf-dog, a native to the area, allowing the animal to evolve to survive the winter
conditions in northern Canada. However, though they were traveling, the dog's instincts told it that it
should curl up in the snow or near a fire and wait for the extreme cold to pass. As the miner was
walking, he kept a lookout for weak spots along the river where he might fall through into the water. In
one spot, he forced the dog, who knew better, to go in front of him; the dog fell through, soaking its
front legs. The dog stopped and started getting the ice out of its toes; the man helped by taking his
gloves off to grab chunks of ice.
At 12:30 PM, he made it to "the forks of the creek" and stopped to have lunch. He took his gloves off
once more and reached in his clothes for food; the miner's fingers went numb almost immediately. He
tried to take a bite, but his ice-beard was too thick, and he noticed his toes were now numb. Suddenly,
he remembered the advice he got from an experienced man at Sulphur Creek about the extreme cold,
which he now regretted not taking seriously. To warm-up, the miner made a fire to thaw his beard and
eat his lunch. When he got ready to leave again, the dog was upset and reluctant to leave but tagged
along.
"The man whistled, and spoke to it with the sound of whip-lashes, and the dog swung in at the man's
heels and followed after."
Shortly after setting back out, the ice gave away under his feet, where he drenched his legs halfway up
to his knees. Angry, he kept a cool head, knowing he needed to act quickly before the freeze set in, and
made his way over to some spruce trees, where he collected dry grasses and twigs and started working
on his fire. Once the fire started and began to grow, a large pile of snow fell from the branches of the
tree he was under, ruining his fire and burying the materials. Thinking back to the man from Sulphur
Creek who had advised him what to do and what not to do, the miner remembered the man telling him
not to travel alone when it is as cold as it is. The miner regretted not heeding the advice and thought
that had he brought a partner, the two of them could have successfully made the fire and kept it going.
The miner worked to gather more materials, trying not to panic. As he tried to relight the fire, he
realized he had lost all dexterity to his fingers. He dropped his matches and struggled to pick them back
up. In a desperate act, he threw off his gloves and held the matches with the heels of his hand, and lit
the handful. The miner tried to get his kindling to catch fire but then realized by the smell that the
flames from the matches were burning his hands. After another attempt, he got his materials to start for
a moment, but when he poked them to rustle the twigs and dry grass, the fire went out. Panicked, the
miner grabbed the dog, thinking he could cut the animal open and use the carcass to thaw his hands;
however, once he held the dog, he realized he could not kill the dog or even grab his knife.
The miner became hysterical, and he began running in the direction of the miner camp. He did not have
the endurance to keep his pace up, and he had to stop. He continued to run a bit longer but knew it was
hopeless; ultimately, he decided to die with dignity and stopped for good. He felt tired, and as he
allowed himself to drift off to sleep, he hallucinated a vision of the man from Sulfur Creek and his
friends waiting for him at the miner camp. His dog sat and watched over him for a while. However,
once the dog could smell that the miner had died, it left, heading for the camp.