Lighting Grandma's Fire

Lighting Grandma's Fire is a hands-on guide to old-fashioned mountain man skills by Bill Cunningham. The catalogue description asks whether you have ever wanted to make a pair of Indian moccasins, cook in a Dutch oven or make a pair of snowshoes by hand, the old fashioned way. The book promises to teach you everything you wanted to know, from making saws to tanning leather to lighting Grandma's fire.

Cunningham also includes an extensive list of suppliers who can provide hard to find old-fashioned materials. Open Library lists Western Reflections as the publisher and 2000 as the year. Its subject headings are equipment and supplies, handicraft, social life and customs, trappers, wilderness survival, and manners and customs. The catalogue lists 160 pages and the ISBN 1-890437-33-6.

We could not find a table of contents or an outside review, so we don't list chapters. What the description supports is a practical how-to: crafts, camp cooking and wilderness skills, plus a supplier list for buyers of traditional materials.

This is a how-to book for people who like making things by hand: moccasins, snowshoes, saws, tanned leather and Dutch oven meals. Its subjects include handicraft, trappers and wilderness survival, so reenactors and campers should find it useful. The supplier list will matter most to anyone looking for traditional materials. We cannot vouch for whether those suppliers still operate, because the list dates from the book's 2000 publication.