Camping and camp cooking

by Frank A. Bates

A Lean-to

If you desire to travel lighter still, or are caught in the woods without shelter, a few minutes’ work will suffice to build a “lean-to.” To erect this structure find two trees about four to six feet apart, or drive two poles into the ground. Lash another pole across them about five feet from the ground for a ridge pole. Cut five poles about eight feet long and lay across this, with one end resting on the ground to form the roof. Cover these poles with bark, laid shingle fashion, or with a thick layer of evergreen boughs. It is astonishing how heavy a rain a bough roof will shed if properly laid on. Now stick some poles at the two sides, with the tops lashed to the side roof poles, wattle in some brush and you have a camp that will keep you dry and with a good fire in front will be as warm as a log house, for the heat of the fire is all reflected down by the slanting roof.

Another Lean-to

If you have no time for so elaborate a construction, cut a pole, rest one end in the crotch of a tree, the other on the ground. With this for a ridge pole lean up poles and brush on each side till you have room for your shelter. If you have no axe to cut a pole, find a leaning tree or a fallen log, or even a boulder, and pile brush against it, having first thrown down a lot of boughs for a bed. This sort of a structure is capable of infinite variation.

THE LOG HUT.

Sometimes in cold weather it becomes necessary to have some shelter more substantial than a tent or even a bark shanty, especially when a prolonged stay is to be made at some central place. A log hut will provide for this, and when timber is plenty can be made with no other tools than a narrow axe. Do not be too extravagant in your idea of size. A small building is more easily kept warm than a large one and a house 8 × 10 feet will shelter four men.

Cut straight logs about 8 inches in diameter. Nine logs 11 feet long for the back; three logs 11 feet long, and sixteen logs 4 feet long for the front; eighteen logs 9 feet long for the ends.

Clear a level place free from brush and lay two 11-foot and two 9-foot logs on the ground in the form of a square, with the ends of the logs notched to hold them in place, with notches deep enough so that the next log when similarly fitted will lie snugly on top. Now proceed to pile the logs up like a cob-house, notching each log at the corners and using the long logs for the back and two of the short logs for the front to provide for a door in the center, where the ends of the logs should be held by a pole on each side. When the short logs are used up put on the long ones. The logs of the front and back should be laid with the butt and top alternated to keep them level, but the ends of the camp should have the butts all laid toward the front to form the pitch of the roof and those with the greatest taper should be selected for the ends.

For the roof, cut poles 13 feet long, lay them lengthwise and notch them into the top logs of the ends. Then cover with birch or hemlock bark. Lay poles across to prevent the high winds from displacing it and throw on evergreen boughs to break the force of the rain.