to build a fire

[TiNy313]

Why does the dog think that "the man's ancestors had known nothing of cold"?

[Clanad]

Jack London through and through... one of several short stories in the book. The phrase you reference is "...The dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the fire. This man did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing-point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold..."

One of London's themes in all of his far north writings is the prescience and "tribal knowledge" of many of the animal characters. This is no different. The man in the story is unaware that he is experiencing seventy-five degrees below zero temperature. He thinks it's a mere fifty degrees below zero, since his only measurement is the spirit themometer he saw just before arriving at Henderson Creek.

But, all of this isn't lost on the dog... he's fully aware of the extreme cold and wants nothing more than to curl up by a good fire... or at worst burrow into a snow bank for warmth, and after the episode of the dog falling through the ice after being pushed ahead by his owner, fully convinces the dog that the man and his ancestors have never known warmth and is unaware of it's (the warmth of a fire) comfort...

[Clanad]

Oh, by the way, you're welcome...