The Emergency “Snack” and Kit
The woodsman well knows that it is an easy matter to stray farther from camp than he intended to when starting out, and that it is a common enough occurrence to lose one’s bearings and become temporarily lost. To prepare for this possible emergency and spend a comfortable night away from the camp, he carries in his pocket a little packet of useful articles and stows away a tiny package containing a small amount of nutritious food. When leaving camp for a day’s hunting and fishing, the usual lunch is, of course, included, but in addition to this, the woodsman should carry a couple of soup tablets, a piece of summer sausage, and some tea. Wrap this in oiled silk, and pack it in a flat tin box. It will take up very little room in the pocket.
The emergency kit is merely a small leather pouch containing a short fishing line; a few fishing hooks; 1 ft. of surgeon’s adhesive plaster; needle and thread; a few safety pins, and a small coil of copper or brass wire. These articles, with the gun and a few spare cartridges, or rod; a belt knife; match safe; compass; map; a little money, pipe, and tobacco, make up the personal outfit without which few woodsmen care to venture far from camp. In addition to the above, I carry a double-edge, light-weight ax, or tomahawk, in a leather sheath at the belt and a tin cup strung to the back of the belt, where it is out of the way and unnoticed until wanted.