Now it is not difficult to get together a quantity of blankets that will keep a man warm on the coldest night, but the trouble will come when he wants to transport them. I have slept out on nights when it would have required a half-dozen or more of the heaviest woolen blankets made to keep me near-comfortable, but a bed of this kind would have made a pack that would discourage a bush Indian. No, you can't carry with you enough woolen blankets to keep you comfortably warm when traveling the northern trails in midwinter. Now think it over and it will become obvious that either a man cannot be comfortable in the woods during zero weather unless he has a way of transporting his camp duffle other than by back-packing, or he must find a lighter, warmer blanket than can be made of wool. The latter is the solution.
Woolen blankets are good, in fact the best thing made, for camping in spring, summer and fall. As long as the spirits do not go lower than 10 or 20 degrees above zero and a fire may be kept burning all night a pair of Hudson Bay blankets are hard to beat. But when the temperature falls lower the shivering spells preceding each "fire-fixing" become too frequent and the cat-naps too short.
The blankets we buy for use on the bed are double, but for camp use single blankets are preferable. They should be of generous size, for a white man cannot sleep comfortably if he must draw his knees up against his chin. What is more, the blankets should cover his head as well as his feet, so they should be a foot and a half longer than the user's height. They should also be wide — six feet will do, but nothing less. With such blankets a man can lie on one-half and pull the other half over him, and by suddenly elevating his pedal extremities he can drop the lower edge of the blankets under them, while the upper part can be drawn tightly around his head and shoulders. Thus he can sleep in real comfort while the fire burns.
Never use a cotton blanket in the woods. Blankets made of cotton are cold to the touch, and do not retain the heat of the body as well as those made of wool. In addition to this they have the bad fault of not being as nearly impervious to sparks as woolen blankets. Now a man of the trail does not sleep with his feet towards the fire like the pioneer scout of border fiction, but he lies by the side of the fire, where he will get the benefit of its heat, and sometimes he rolls closer than he should for safety.
This I learned from actual experience about the first time I ever tried camping out. I believed firmly that I couldn't afford to buy woolen blankets, so I used a pair made of cotton. I was sleeping by the side of a fire and as it was quite cold I snuggled close. I awoke to find a decidedly warm feeling about my knee, and on hasty examination found a large section of one trouser leg burned away and a hole in the blanket over a foot in diameter. I then decided that I could afford woolen blankets and have stood by that decision ever since.
One of the best blankets for camping purposes that I ever owned was a square horse blanket, from which I removed the trimmings. Its thick all-wool body and generous size made it ideal for camp use. The Hudson's Bay blankets are excellent, being heavy and of large size. Then there are many camp blankets of less note, most of which are good. Really good, heavy, all-wool blankets of a size 72x84 inches will cost from $5.00 to $10.00 each for single blankets, and twice that much for the double kind, if you can get them. These single blankets should weigh from four and a half to five pounds each. Color is immaterial — if you fancy the bright scarlet kind buy it, for it will give as good service as a gray one. But a white blanket is almost sure to contain all good wool, for it is harder to conceal shoddy stuff that is not dyed. White is not a good color for camping purposes, but it is not a difficult task to dye a white blanket.
A woolen blanket is neither heavy, bulky, nor stiff. It is easily folded to fit the pack, and when properly arranged it forms a pad which protects the back of the packer from the corners of the cooking utensils and the ever-gouging steel traps and other hardware. If the packer has no pack cloth he can use the blanket for this purpose, although it is none too good for the blanket. If it gets wet it is easily dried without danger of burning, and if it does not get thoroughly dry it is warmer still than a cotton blanket.
But when zero weather is to be contended with woolen blankets must take a back seat for the Indian's kind, woven from strips of rabbit fur. Nothing that I have ever found will equal or even approach in warmth a rabbit skin blanket. One such blanket, weighing eight or ten pounds, is all that a man requires for sleeping out of doors in a temperature of 40 below zero. Yes, I know that it sounds far-fetched; but a trial will convince the most skeptical. Many a morning I have found my nose almost frozen when I awoke, but otherwise I was perfectly comfortable; the reason being that my nose was the only part of my anatomy not enveloped in the rabbit skin blanket. I couldn't believe that it was so cold until I emerged from the folds of the covering to kindle a fire. With one of these fur blankets I have slept comfortably off and on during an entire winter north of Lake Superior, in a cabin which had the cracks chinked on two sides only, the other two sides having openings between the logs through which I could put my hand, and I never had a fire at night.
These blankets are made by all northern Indian tribes. They are woven from the skins of the snowshoe rabbit, or varying hare, cut into strips for the purpose. The animals producing these skins are found in almost incredible numbers in most of the wilder parts of Canada, as well as in parts of the northern States. The blankets can be made only in winter, when the fur is white and in good condition. The rabbits are taken in snares, case skinned, and the skins are cut into strips while green. This work is done by the squaws. The method is to trim the open end of the skin, then starting at this end with a sharp knife the entire skin is cut into a single strip about an inch wide by holding it on the knee and cutting around and around. Each skin will make a strip 10 or 12 feet long. As soon as it is cut the skin rolls up like a cord, fur on all sides. These strips of green fur are wound into a ball and placed out of doors, where they will freeze and remain frozen, each day's accumulation being added to the ball until a sufficient number have been secured to make a blanket. I cannot say how many skins are required, but believe about 50 or 60, perhaps more. Of course the number needed would depend partly on the size of blanket desired.
