In the short story, “Canyon”, by Don Gayton, the depiction of the fire the narrator ritualistically sets at the canyon illustrates the mutuality between human and nature, and the human proclivity to protect nature from degradation.
The canyon is a source of beauty for the narrator, who believes that the “water of that canyon [flows] only for [him]”. As a “dusty young hired man”, the narrator takes leisurely swims in the pools of the canyon and lights up a fire afterwards, burning the “gnarled and twisted sagebrush sticks” he has collected from the ground. The fire symbolizes the narrator’s way of cleaning up after the canyon, after the canyon’s waters have cleaned him up—the correlation between human and nature. The solemn ritual of the narrator
