Matches are part of any good backcountry kit, but we聽don鈥檛 need them. The modern match is an industrial-era interloper that stuck around. Today (a day in June), under a shade canopy, next to a tent, at the edge of one of the parking lots for the ninth-annual outside of Barnardsville, North Carolina, our 鈥淢aking Fire鈥� teacher has no matches. He does, however, have chaga, amadou, and an ax. Chaga is a mushroom that grows on birch trees. Amadou is a horse hoof or tinder fungus that burns 鈥渓ike gasoline.鈥� You can 鈥渇ind it on dead maples near water.鈥� He processed his by soaking it in wood ash, then boiling it, so it鈥檚 soft now, like leather.聽

These are like the supplies unearthed in 1991 with the body of a man from 5,300 years ago, along the Austro-Italian border. Our teacher, Shawn, speaks with fellow-feeling of that frozen, tattooed man. 鈥淭he Iceman鈥� wore a cloak of plaited grass and a poncho of untanned hide. He had a container for carrying embers, and another for making fire. In that kit were pieces of flint, tinder from the pulp of a mushroom, and the dust of pyrite: enough to prepare a last meal of ibex, before dying from a blow to the head.

Shawn comes from the part of the Carolinas that are 鈥渉ot and flat and flat and hot.鈥� Recently he went to McDonald鈥檚 to collect some yucca for a bowdrill spindle, and a guy came out, all huffy, and accused him of trespassing. Shawn told him that he was 鈥減racticing survival鈥� right there by the dumpsters, one part of which is 鈥減racticing fire.鈥� 聽He says this phrase like a man convicted of his love. The infatuation becomes a skill, the skill a way of being, and then a whole life.聽

鈥淚 like things that鈥檒l do more than one thing,鈥� Shawn says. Fire does that best of all: it can clean, warm, cook, signal, and make a way. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like the never-ending gobstopper.鈥澛犅� 聽

I like this man. Like most of the people here, he has a knife on one hip. Unlike most of them, he keeps his shirt on, smokes cigarettes, sawmills for a living, and insists that a woman take his camp chair, so I do.聽

This is the first class of four days. In time, the other campers and I will weave pine-needle baskets, throw tomahawks, make sinew glue, get bitten, go on 鈥渕yoclogy crawls,鈥� greet our ancestors, or stay up for 鈥渆cstatic drumming.鈥� We鈥檙e a quiet lot, the firemakers, and only one of us is wearing a buckskin bikini: the cool-kid clothes.

Shawn鈥檚 spread our tools on a folding table and a tarp. Rocks can be ranked from one to ten鈥攆rom talc to diamonds鈥攁nd he has a pile of 鈥減retty damn hard ones鈥� on the ground. Chert, jasper, quartzite, obsidian, the broken pieces of a porcelain toilet, which, thus translated, is called 鈥渏ohnstone.鈥� There鈥檚 a bundle of southern yellow pine鈥攖he 鈥渇at lighter鈥� or 鈥済rease wood鈥濃�攖hat will catch when it鈥檚 wet and smells divine. There are charred portions of what was his wife鈥檚 100-percent cotton washrag, the seashell imprint still visible, and blackened Kodak and Altoid tins for charring more. There鈥檚 a package of steel wool and another of jute twine; buckets of amadou and chaga, both cooked and raw; a cheap hacksaw blade, that can be broken into fire starters; and big bags of cattail down, mugwort, and the cambium layer from the bark of cottonwood, cedar, tulip polar, and birch. There鈥檚 a beautiful row of oval- and C-shaped fire steels for making sparks: Colonials, Hudson Bay, French Ovals, and one that鈥檚 shaped like a handlebar moustache, which he gives to a bare-chested friend who stops by. Of the fire steels, Shawn says: 鈥淭here was a time when these were money.鈥� He notes how many beaver pelts the Lewis and Clark expedition could get in exchange for some.

There are eight or nine of us students, including one teen-aged boy who says nothing, ever, but lights his chin-length hair on fire repeatedly. Our first task is to make tinder bundles. For models, there is a packrat鈥檚 nest that Shawn found in his garage, and a bird鈥檚 nest that fell to the ground. You could burn either of them, or you could study their shape and work to replicate it. I take some cambium and work it in my hands. The big strands must become small strands, which you roll and press together. Shawn tells us to make it 鈥渓ook like something your cat threw up that dried on the couch,鈥� which isn鈥檛 quite right, as it all smells so good. I get my bundle curled and tight, and work in the looser cattail down. I press my thumbs to make an indentation. That鈥檚 where the egg could go, or the fire. It is, or will be, 鈥渙ne big match.鈥�

We ought to practice these motions with our eyes closed鈥攁ll ears and nose and touch. That way we鈥檒l know how to make fire in the dark, the same dark that many of us here seek out for solace, and others trust is coming, one way or another.

When your tinder bundle is ready, you set it aside. You take a rock, your 鈥淕erber all-in-one tool,鈥� and rough up the edge of a big piece of chert or what-have-you. That鈥檚 where you鈥檙e aiming to break off hunk, then you come down hard. If you鈥檝e done well, you鈥檒l have a piece that鈥檚 round, a little smaller than your palm, and as 鈥渟harp as the workday鈥檚 long.鈥� Take that in one hand and press your scrap of tinder on top: steel wool, amadou, charred cloth, the last newspaper of the last city, some jute. There are people who walk around picking up animal fibers that they alone seem to see鈥攆ine hairs from a rutting elk, say. Those will do, too.

Then you need steel. You strike the rock with the backside of your knife if it鈥檚 a good one, but the motion will 鈥渂ooger it up.鈥� The steel must be high-carbon steel, and properly annealed for toughness, until it鈥檚 鈥渉otter than the hinges hanging off the gates of hell.鈥� Get your wrist loose, like hey-ay. Then go.

I take a pretty French Oval with curls at each end and swing against the sharp edge of chert. When it sparks I wait, wondering. It stays. It catches. There is, I should mention, no wind and no rain, no enemy, or stampede. I take that ragged black square, smoldering now, and place it in my tinder bundle. The motions are surprisingly ginger. Now I cradle the nest, bring it to my face, and blow.

There鈥檚 fire. There鈥檚 food. There鈥檚 civilization.

I thank my teacher and wander off. The composting toilets are nicer than the port-a-potties. The cows seem melancholy. The swimming pond is clothing-optional each evening at 5:30. A radical bookstore from Asheville arrives with coffee, that best import, and I bless them for it.聽

My phone has no signal and won鈥檛 for days. I鈥檒l fall asleep to fireflies and wake up soaked in rain. My white athletic socks look like freak flags in these woods, where bark makes a backpack, and hide, the best skirts; that low moan is a didgeridoo; if you want a spoon, get carving; and the thing to do with your moontime blood is let it fall to the earth.

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