Campfires

Campfires

           I don’t know for certain when our ancestors first used fire
but to paraphrase a well known movie line “it was a long, long time ago” and we
are still using it today. Fire allowed us humans to emerge from the prey
category to the hunter and only once in a while prey category. Our ancestors
found that using fire allowed them to make better weapons to defend themselves
with, to hunt with, to expand their territory and become explorers instead of
just being survivors tied to a small locality where food and shelter were.

            I am pretty sure that those
ancestors sat around the campfire at night and told their stories and passed on
knowledge to the youngsters. Today we don’t often get to sit around the
campfire like that but when we do it seems to unlock a memory long hidden deep
inside us that we inherited from those ancestors. I was reminded of that this
past week when we lit a fire in our campfire pit out in the back yard. We like
to sit and watch the fire while having some cool beverages and contemplate the
affairs of the world. As we watched the flames dance about in our small
campfire I reflected on some of my first fire experiences. As kids we were
outdoors constantly and we learned how to build a proper fire and use it
carefully at an early age. I vividly remember holidays when we would build a fire
and roast hotdogs and marshmallows and play outside till all hours of the night
because we were safe by the fire.

           As I grew into a small game hunter I often rabbit hunted in
the cold, snowy winter and once in a while it was nice to stop and build a
small fire to warm up by for a bit before continuing the hunt. In the summer
when I was trout fishing it was a simple matter to build a small fire and grill
a trout or two over that fire; there is something about  fresh trout cooked over a smoky fire. When I
stayed with my Grandma Lee at her farm in the summer it was one of my duties to
stoke the wood cook stove in the kitchen so breakfast could be on time. We also
had a big old pot belly stove in the living room that occasionally needed to be
fired up on a cool night. Building a proper fire was essential and I took my
job seriously.

            I always remembered my skills in the
fire making department when I went to deer camp where we had the fireplace stoked
pretty much twenty-four hours a day and the wood stoves heating the camp were always
kept hot.  Campfires were a big part of
my hunting in the mountains of California, New Mexico and Colorado.  I suppose what I’m trying to say is camp fires
were a big part of any hunt I was on and there was, and still is, nothing more
comforting than coming in from the woods in the fading light of day and getting
a good fire going to sit before and wind down. It always seems more fitting to
eat camp meals in front of a fire and then savor the beauty of the wilderness
all around. A properly built fire can be banked down at night and in the
morning all that is needed is to rake some of the still hot coals together and
add kindling to get a campfire back up and running.

            I feel sadness for the countless
people who will never experience the beauty of the campfire. I worry that the
children of today seem to have no interest in the outdoors or campfires; I hope
I’m wrong. In a few more generations there may not be such a thing as a campfire
and that will be a great loss.

Chris

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