The Lean-To Going Up
To acquaint ourselves with the woods we can begin with our immediate surroundings. Short walks to search for flowers or ferns and to know the different varieties of trees, or early morning trips to a bit of swamp land where we can study the coloring and habits of birds or sit quietly while patiently listening to distinguish them by their songs.
We can lie out on the grass when the stars have come out, and study the heavens or take trips at night with an experienced woodsman, who perhaps shows us that Nature by night is very often different from Nature by day, or of how we can find a trail through a dense wood by the light of a star—the North Star.
Woodcraft includes what we may merely for convenience classify as campcraft, which is to know all there is to know about camping in the open.
For most purposes a good knowledge of how to make out-door fires; (both from the standpoint of heat and the kind of food to be cooked) cooking; trailing; and how to make and break a camp, are sufficient.
Beginners in this lore would do well to get a thorough knowledge of campcraft by going about it one step at a time. For instance, it is advisable to confine oneself to short trips at first and learn about the sensing of directions, trail cutting and blazing, cooking, pitching tents or building lean-tos; thus taking the various branches which are preparatory to the actual experience and real adventure of a camping-out party, and it is then and there that our real knowledge is tested.
The topics to be considered either when learning about campcraft or when actually doing it, are briefly:
1. Trip Planning
Use of maps
Provisions
Clothing
Railroad connections
2. Trail Making
Survey for trail
Blazing trail
Cutting a trail
3. Selection of Camp Site
Location as to supply of fuel, water and fairly high, well-drained land.
Shelters, tents or lean-tos
Bed-making