Outdoor Sports and Games

by Claude Harris Miller

How to select the best place and to pitch the tent—A brush bed—The best kind of a tent—How to make the camp fire—What to do when it rains—Fresh air and good food—The brush leanto and how to make it

Going camping is the best fun in the world if we know how to do it. Every healthy boy and girl if given an opportunity should enjoy living outdoors for a week or two and playing at being an Indian. There is more to camping however than “roughing it” or seeing how much hardship we can bear. A good camper always makes himself just as comfortable as he can under the circumstances. The saying that “an army travels on its stomach” means that a soldier can not make long marches or fight hard unless he has good food. The surest sign of a “tenderfoot” is the boy who makes fun of you because you try to have a soft dry bed while he prefers to sleep on the ground under the mistaken idea that it is manly or brave. He will usually spoil a trip in the woods for every one in the party.

Another poor kind of a camper pitches his tent so that his bed gets wet and his food spoiled on the first rainy day, and then sits around cold and hungry trying hard to think that he is having fun, to keep from getting homesick. This kind of a boy “locks the door after the horse is stolen.” If we go camping we must know how to prevent the unpleasant things from happening. We must always be ready for wind and rain, heat and cold. A camping party should make their plans a long time ahead in order to get their equipment ready. Careful lists should be made of what we think we shall need. After we are out in the woods, there will be no chance to run around the corner to the grocer’s to supply what we have forgotten. If it is forgotten, we must simply make the best of it and not allow it to spoil our trip.

It is surprising how many things that we think are almost necessary to life we can get along without if we are obliged to. The true woodsman knows how to turn to his use a thousand of nature’s gifts and to make himself comfortable, while you and I might stand terrified and miserable under the same conditions.

Daniel Boone, the great wilderness traveller, could go out alone in the untracked forest with nothing but his rifle, his axe and a small pack on his back and by a knowledge of the stars, the rivers, the trees and the wild animals, he could go for weeks travelling hundreds of miles, building his bed and his leanto out of the evergreen boughs, lighting his fire with his flint and steel, shooting game for his food and dressing and curing their skins for his clothing and in a thousand ways supplying his needs from nature’s storehouse. The school of the woods never sends out graduates. We may learn something new every day.

With a head shelter and a sleeping bag he can keep dry and warm

The average city boy or girl does not have an opportunity to become a skilled master of woodcraft, but because we cannot learn it all is no reason why we should not learn something. The best way to learn it is in the woods themselves and not out of books.

A party of four boys makes a good number for a camping trip. They will probably agree better than two or three. They can do much of the camp work in pairs. No one need to be left alone to look after the camp while the others go fishing or hunting or to some nearby town for the mail or for supplies. There is no reason why four boys of fifteen who are resourceful and careful cannot spend a week or two in the woods in perfect safety and come back home sounder in mind and body than when they left. It is always better to take along some one who has “camped out” before. If he cannot be found, then make your plans, decide what you will do and how you will do it, take a few cooking lessons from mother or the cook—if the latter is good-natured—and go anyway. First elect a leader, not because he is any more important than the rest but because if some one goes ahead and gives directions, the life in camp will run much more smoothly and every one will have a better time.

If it is your first experience in camping, you had better go somewhere near home. The best place is one that can be reached by wagon. If we have to carry our supplies on our backs or in a canoe, the amount we can take will be much less. After you have had some experience near home you can safely try the other way. Where you go is of comparatively little importance. Near every large city there is some lake or river where you can find a good camping site. Campers always have more fun if they are near some water, but if such a place is not easily found near where you live, go into the woods. Try to get away from towns or villages. The wilder the place is, the better.