Woodcraft

by George Washington Sears

And now I wish to devote some space to one of the most important adjuncts of woodcraft, i.e., camps; how to make them and how to make them comfortable. There are camps and camps. There are camps in the North Woods that are really fine villas, costing thousands of dollars and there are log-houses and shanties and bark camps and A tents and walled tents, shelter-tents and shanty-tents. But, I assume that the camp best fitted to the wants of the average outer is the one that combines the essentials of dryness, lightness, portability, cheapness and is easily and quickly put up. Another essential is, that it must admit of a bright fire in front by night or day. I will give short descriptions of the forest shelters (camps) I have found handiest and most useful.

Firstly, I will mention a sort of camp that was described in a sportsman's paper and has since been largely quoted and used. It is made by fastening a horizontal pole to a couple of contiguous trees and then putting on a heavy covering of hemlock boughs, shingling them with the tips downward, of course. A fire is to be made at the roots of one of the trees. This, with plenty of boughs, may be made to stand a pretty stiff rain; but it is only a damp arbor, and no camp, properly speaking. A forest camp should always admit of a bright fire in front, with a lean-to or shed roof overhead, to reflect the fire heat on the bedding below. Any camp that falls short of this, lacks the requirements of warmth, brightness and healthfulness. This is why I discard all close, canvas tents.

The simplest and most primitive of all camps is the "Indian camp." It is easily and quickly made, is warm and comfortable and stands a pretty heavy rain when properly put up. This is how it is made: Let us say you are out and have slightly missed your way. The coming gloom warns you that night is shutting down. You are no tenderfoot. You know that a place of rest is essential to health and comfort through the long, cold November night. You dive down the first little hollow until you strike a rill of water, for water is a prime necessity. As you draw your hatchet you take in the whole situation at a glance. The little stream is gurgling downward in a half choked frozen way. There is a huge sodden hemlock lying across it. One clip of the hatchet shows it will peel. There is plenty of smaller timber standing around; long, slim poles, with a tuft of foliage on top. Five minutes suffice to drop one of these, cut a twelve-foot pole from it, sharpen the pole at each end, jam one end into the ground and the other into the rough back of a scraggy hemlock and there is your ridge pole. Now go—with your hatchet—for the bushiest and most promising young hemlocks within reach. Drop them and draw them to camp rapidly. Next, you need a fire. There are fifty hard, resinous limbs sticking up from the prone hemlock; lop off a few of these and split the largest into match timber; reduce the splinters to shavings, scrape the wet leaves from your prospective fireplace and strike a match on the balloon part of your trousers. If you are a woodsman you will strike but one. Feed the fire slowly at first; it will gain fast. When you have a blaze ten feet high, look at your watch. It is 6 P.M. You don't want to turn in before 10 o'clock and you have four hours to kill before bedtime. Now, tackle the old hemlock; take off every dry limb and then peel the bark and bring it to camp. You will find this takes an hour or more.

Next, strip every limb from your young hemlocks and shingle them onto your ridge pole. This will make a sort of bear den, very well calculated to give you a comfortable night's rest. The bright fire will soon dry the ground that is to be your bed and you will have plenty of time to drop another small hemlock and make a bed of browse a foot thick. You do it. Then you make your pillow. Now, this pillow is essential to comfort and very simple. It is half a yard of muslin, sewed up as a bag and filled with moss or hemlock browse. You can empty it and put it in your pocket, where it takes up about as much room as a handkerchief. You have other little muslin bags—an' you be wise. One holds a couple of ounces of good tea; another, sugar; another is kept to put your loose duffle in: money, match safe, pocket-knife. You have a pat of butter and a bit of pork, with a liberal slice of brown bread; and before turning in you make a cup of tea, broil a slice of pork and indulge in a lunch.

Ten o'clock comes. The time has not passed tediously. You are warm, dry and well-fed. Your old friends, the owls, come near the fire-light and salute you with their strange wild notes; a distant fox sets up for himself with his odd, barking cry and you turn in. Not ready to sleep just yet.

But you drop off; and it is two bells in the morning watch when you waken with a sense of chill and darkness. The fire has burned low and snow is falling. The owls have left and a deep silence broods over the cold, still forest. You rouse the fire and, as the bright light shines to the furthest recesses of your forest den, get out the little pipe and reduce a bit of navy plug to its lowest denomination. The smoke curls lazily upward; the fire makes you warm and drowsy and again you lie down—to again awaken with a sense of chilliness—to find the fire burned low and daylight breaking. You have slept better than you would in your own room at home. You have slept in an "Indian camp."

You have also learned the difference between such a simple shelter and an open air bivouac under a tree or beside an old log.

Another easily made and very comfortable camp is the "brush shanty," as it is usually called in Northern Pennsylvania. The frame for such a shanty is a cross-pole resting on two crotches about six feet high and enough straight poles to make a foundation for the thatch. The poles are laid about six inches apart, one end on the ground, the other on the cross-pole, and at a pretty sharp angle. The thatch is made of the fan-like boughs cut from the thrifty young hemlock and are to be laid bottom upward and feather end down. Commence to lay them from the ground and work up to the cross-pole, shingling them carefully as you go. If the thatch be laid a foot in thickness and well done, the shanty will stand a pretty heavy rain—better than the average bark roof, which is only rainproof in dry weather.

A bark camp, however, may be a very neat sylvan affair, provided you are camping where spruce or balsam fir may be easily reached, and in the hot months when bark will "peel"; and you have a day in which to work at a camp. The best bark camps I have ever seen are in the Adirondacks. Some of them are rather elaborate in construction, requiring two or more days' hard labor by a couple of guides. When the stay is to be a long one and the camp permanent, perhaps it will pay.

As good a camp as I have ever tried—perhaps the best—is the "shanty-tent" shown in the illustration. It is easily put up, is comfortable, neat and absolutely rain-proof. Of course, it may be of any required size; but, for a party of two, the following dimensions and directions will be found all sufficient: