In Jack London's "To Build a Fire," after rejecting the wisdom of the old timer on Sulphur Creek, the protagonist finds himself, virtually alone, battling for continued existence against nature. Though the old timer had endured many winters in the Klondike, the "Man" in his first winter there ignored the significance of the old timer's knowledge of survival. On a journey over thirty miles in seventy-five degrees below zero weather, the chechaquo traveled companionless except for a husky with better instincts for surviving such blood-freezing temperatures.

Although the old timer on Sulphur Creek had survived many winters in the Klondike, the "new-comer" had too much pride to heed the advice of the old man. "The old timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below." "Those old timers were rather...