Flint Collecting

I and some of my classmates went to go collect flint. The way we did it was we had to grab a big rock and smash it against the rock face and then it would come loose. Thats how we had gotten it. Later on that day we made a fire with a striker and some dry birch bark. The striker was metal and it fit around our hand. Then we would strike the striker against the flint and set the birch bark on the flint so the sparks could catch to the bark.

As a means for starting fires, flint was a valuable trade item throughout the region, and flint shards have often been found in ancient Native settlement sites, sometimes far from the origin of the flint. Steel is presently used as the striker because it's harder, easier to form, and more convenient, yet before the advent of steel, harder stones sufficed.