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The evening was still, the sky blue, turning slowly pink. The moon had already risen and was tracking slowly higher in the cloudless atmosphere. Cloudless that is, apart from the thin wisp of smoke that broke the tree line and rose up straight as a flag pole into the evening blue.

I smiled and wondered what the penalty was for lighting a fire during a summertime ban. I didn’t really care to tell you the truth, and that’s not because I’m some crazy law-breakin’ son of a gun; it’s just that the fire wasn’t mine.

Every evening the same thing. A near neighbour of mine lights his fire, takes up residence in an armchair conveniently set under a tree and wiles away the evening hours with a bottle of beer in hand and a long stick, with which he pokes at said fire.

I don’t get the attraction. Or rather I do get that this guy is relaxing in the best way he knows how and I respect him for that. But I don’t get the need to light up on a hot summer’s evening; then again, I’m not a proper Canadian, yet.

In the year and a half that I’ve lived here, I’ve been lucky enough to meet a whole range of folks, from intellectuals to hillbillies, environmental activists to artists and bear hunters but the one thing that almost all of them have got in common is that they like a good bonfire. In fact, it seems that you Canadian folk are addicted to fire.

If there’s a party there’s a fire be it in April, July, October or January.

I’ve been ice fishing and they built a fire, on the ice no less. I stood a long way away from it. They weren’t catching this limey with their crazy winter humour!

I’ve been to a wedding and they built a fire – from marriage vows to marsh mallows in the space of minutes.

I’ve been to countless barbeques and guess what, one flaming heat source was just not enough. “You gotta have something to poke your stick at,” said the host (and he wasn’t my near neighbour).

And so, when I bought my house one of the first things I did was build a fire pit in the garden. A fine ring of rocks it was too. We had a house warming, quite literally. A big fire in the new pit, lots of friends around, too many beers and a stick or two to poke while we set the world to right.

That was last year though and now the grass has grown up around those rocks. The fire pit looks forlorn as it slowly disappears into the lawn because we’ve not had a burn in it yet. The recent fire ban helped assuage my guilt at not keeping up a Canadian tradition. But, now that the ban has been lifted the fire pit haunts my waking moments and pervades my dreams.

“Come warm me. Come burn. Come stare into the dancing orange flames that lick at your poking stick…” Whoa! Sorry. You see it got me then. This damn fire pit is talking to me, it’s driving me crazy.

The trouble is my reserved English character just doesn’t cut it as ‘fire master’, ‘flame father’, ‘bilious burner’ you get the idea… And, the friend who introduced me to the Canadian tradition of fire starting has since moved to Vancouver.

Without him there is no impish charmer to control embers. And alas, I don’t have his crazy hair, outlandish sideburns, baseball cap and laceless boots – the uniform of any self respecting red-ne…sorry, flame fetishist – to indulge in his mad fire dances.

What do I do?

I guess if I am to truly integrate into Canadian life, I have to learn to burn more stuff. Either that, or resign myself to being forever English.

Perhaps I should trundle an armchair over to my near neighbour, sit down, clink a bottle and see if he can lend me a poking stick while he enlightens me during a nice fireside chat. Best do it while the fire ban’s not in force!