The man starts to remove his frozen moccasins, when, suddenly, snow falls from the pine trees above onto the man and his fire. Any man should be able to do the same, he believes. And yet, the man had provided for himself even after an accident. The old man had cautioned that no one should travel alone in temperatures of fifty degrees below zero. He moves carefully, understanding that he needs to be successful at his first attempt to build a fire.Īs the fire roars to life, the man congratulates himself on proving the old man at Sulphur Creek wrong. The man gathers wood and constructs his fire among some pine trees at the top of a bank. He curses the delay, but knows he must stop to build a fire and dry his clothes, another piece of instruction from the old man at Sulphur Creek. Then, without warning, the ice breaks and he falls through.
When the man moves on, the dog does not want to leave the fire, drawn to its safety.įor half an hour, the man does not observe any telltale signs of water under the snow. The dog sits near the fire enjoying the warmth. He builds a fire, melts the ice from his face, and eats his lunch. He had scoffed at the man’s stories of the cold temperatures, but now acknowledges that the man was right: it is extremely cold. He remembers meeting an old man at Sulphur Creek who gave him traveling and safety advice. He laughs at his own foolishness he forgot to first build a fire to warm himself. He realizes he cannot feel his toes and feet, and the ice frozen around his mouth in his beard obstructs his eating. In the few minutes that he removes his mittens his hands grow numb. The man arrives at a divide in the creek where he stops to eat his lunch. It does not know the consequences of frozen feet, but it is directed by its survival instinct to remove the ice. The dog chews the ice from between its toes. The dog falls through and the water on its feet and legs freezes instantly.
#Rising action of wings of fire prezi Patch#
Once, sensing danger, he sends the dog over a patch of ice first. He shies away from a place where he feels the ice move. Falling through the ice and getting wet would be dangerous and would delay his travel because he would need to stop to build a fire to warm himself. The creek he follows is frozen solid, but streams run from the hillsides under the snow and these small pools can be liquid even in the coldest temperature. It expects the man to do the same: stop traveling and build a fire.Īs the man walks, he is looking carefully for places where the ice and snow might conceal hidden water.
It feels it should curl up beneath the snow and wait out the cold. The dog’s natural instincts tell it that it is unsafe to travel in these weather conditions. The temperature is, in fact, seventy-five degrees below zero. He chews tobacco as he walks, and his spit freezes in an icicle from his mouth in the extreme cold.
#Rising action of wings of fire prezi skin#
The man, therefore, thinks very little as he walks, considering only his destination for the evening, and his lunch, which he carries inside his jacket against his skin to keep it from freezing. Such extreme temperatures promise discomfort, but do not cause him to reflect on the risks, his own death, and his role in the natural world. A weather forecast of fifty degrees below zero does not mean much to the man, who is competent but lacks imagination. The man is a newcomer to this area and unfamiliar with the extreme cold temperatures. At the end of their day hike, the man will be reunited with his traveling companions, who he refers to as “ the boys,” at the Henderson Camp. In northern Canada, a solitary hiker and his dog depart from the main Yukon trail.
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