When I started this podcast more than seven years ago, the primary factor was based on just one fundamental concept: the impact of a good story.

For each What Was That Like main episode, you hear a story. The guest is telling the story of what happened. Many of the stories are traumatic, many include loss and grief, and there are those that are happy as well. Even the heavy stories often end on a positive note. But the common factor is that they are all things that actually happened. The guest is talking about an actual thing that they experienced.

The story you’re about to hear in this episode would fall into the category of fiction.

In a recent episode, my guest was David, and he was talking about being in the extremely cold north, and not being able to find a cabin that he knew was nearby. That one is episode 225, called “David couldn’t find the cabin”. In that episode, I opened with the first few lines from one of my favorite short stories – To Build A Fire, by Jack London. Reading just that short section made me want to read the full story again.

And that’s what I’m doing in today’s episode. Jack London is my favorite author, and I love this story because he really puts us in the mind of this man, and his thought process, and his range of emotions.

So we’ll first have a quick break for a couple of sponsors who make the show possible, and then we’ll get into this story. Please enjoy this amazing work by Jack London… To Build A Fire.

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To Build a Fire