CHAPTER III
Getting Lost—Camping Out—Roughing It Or Smoothing It—Insects—Camps, And How To Make Them
WITH a large majority of prospective tourists and outers, "camping out" is a leading factor in the summer vacation. And during the long winter months they are prone to collect in little knots and talk much of camps, fishing, hunting and "roughing it." The last phrase is very popular and always cropping out in the talks on matters pertaining to a vacation in the woods. I dislike the phrase. We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home; in towns and cities; in shops, offices, stores, banks anywhere that we may be placed—with the necessity always present of being on time and up to our work; of providing for the dependent ones; of keeping up, catching up, or getting left. "Alas for the lifelong battle, whose bravest slogan is bread."
As for the few fortunate ones who have no call to take a hand in any strife or struggle, who not only have all the time there is, but a great deal that they cannot dispose of with any satisfaction to themselves or anybody else—I am not writing for them; but only to those of the world's workers who go, or would like to go, every summer to the woods. And to these I would say, don't rough it; make it as smooth, as restful and pleasurable as you can.
To this end you need pleasant days and peaceful nights. You cannot afford to be tormented and poisoned by insects, nor kept awake at night by cold and damp, nor to exhaust your strength by hard tramps and heavy loads. Take it easy and always keep cool. Nine men out of ten, on finding themselves lost in the woods, fly into a panic and quarrel with the compass. Never do that. The compass is always right, or nearly so. It is not many years since an able-bodied man—sportsman of course—lost his way in the North Woods and took fright, as might be expected. He was well armed and well found for a week in the woods. What ought to have been only an interesting adventure, became a tragedy. He tore through thickets and swamps in his senseless panic, until he dropped and died through fright, hunger and exhaustion.
A well authenticated story is told of a guide in the Oswegatchie region, who perished in the same way. Guides are not infallible; I have known more than one to get lost. Wherefore, should you be tramping through a pathless forest on a cloudy day, and should the sun suddenly break from under a cloud in the northwest about noon, don't be scared. The last day is not at hand and the planets have not become mixed; only, you are turned. You have gradually swung around, until you are facing northwest when you meant to travel south. It has a muddling effect on the mind—this getting lost in the woods. But, if you can collect and arrange your gray brain matter and suppress all panicky feeling, it is easily got along with. For instance; it is morally certain that you commenced swinging to southwest, then west, to northwest. Had you kept on until you were heading directly north, you could rectify your course simply by following a true south course. But, as you have varied three-eighths of the circle, set your compass and travel by it to the southeast, until, in your judgment, you have about made up the deviation; then go straight south and you will not be far wrong. Carry the compass in your hand and look at it every few minutes; for the tendency to swerve from a straight course when a man is once lost—and nearly always to the right—is a thing past understanding.
As regards poisonous insects, it may be said that, to the man with clean, bleached, tender skin, they are, at the start, an unendurable torment. No one can enjoy life with a smarting, burning, swollen face, while the attacks on every exposed inch of skin are persistent and constant. I have seen a young man after two days' exposure to these pests come out of the woods with one eye entirely closed and the brow hanging over it like a clam shell, while face and hands were almost hideous from inflammation and puffiness. The St. Regis and St. Francis Indians, although born and reared in the woods, by no means make light of the black fly.
It took the man who could shoot Phantom Falls to find out, "Its bite is not severe, nor is it ordinarily poisonous. There may be an occasional exception to this rule; but beside the bite of the mosquito, it is comparatively mild and harmless." And again: "Gnats…in my way of thinking, are much worse than the black fly or mosquito." So says Murray. Our observations differ. A thousand mosquitoes and as many gnats can bite me without leaving a mark, or having any effect save the pain of the bite while they are at work. But each bite of the black fly makes a separate and distinct boil, that will not heal and be well in two months.
While fishing for brook trout in July last, I ran into a swarm of them on Moose River and got badly bitten. I had carelessly left my medicine behind. On the first of October the bites had not ceased to be painful, and it was three months before they disappeared entirely. Frank Forester says, in his Fish and Fishing, page 371, that he has never fished for the red-fleshed trout of Hamilton county, "being deterred therefrom by dread of that curse of the summer angler, the black fly, which is to me especially venomous."
"Adirondack Murray" gives extended directions for beating these little pests by the use of buckskin gloves with chamois gauntlets, Swiss mull, fine muslin, etc. Then he advises a mixture of sweet oil and tar, which is to be applied to face and hands; and he adds that it is easily washed off, leaving the skin soft and smooth as an infant's; all of which is true. But, more than forty years' experience in the woods has taught me that the following recipe is infallible anywhere that sancudos A type of mosquito., moquims A small, red mite, whose bite causes an intense itch., or our own poisonous insects do most abound.
It was published in Forest and Stream in the summer of 1880 and again in '83. It has been pretty widely quoted and adopted and I have never known it to fail: Three ounces pine tar, two ounces castor oil, one ounce pennyroyal oil. Simmer all together over a slow fire and bottle for use. You will hardly need more than a two-ounce vial full in a season. One ounce has lasted me six weeks in the woods. Rub it in thoroughly and liberally at first, and after you have established a good glaze, a little replenishing from day to day will be sufficient. And don't fool with soap and towels where insects are plenty. A good safe coat of this varnish grows better the longer it is kept on—and it is cleanly and wholesome. If you get your face and hands crocky or smutty about the campfire, wet the corner of your handkerchief and rub it off, not forgetting to apply the varnish at once, wherever you have cleaned it off. Last summer I carried a cake of soap and a towel in my knapsack through the North Woods for a seven weeks' tour and never used either a single time. When I had established a good glaze on the skin, it was too valuable to be sacrificed for any weak whim connected with soap and water. When I struck a woodland hotel, I found soap and towels plenty enough. I found the mixture gave one's face the ruddy tanned look supposed to be indicative of health and hard muscle. A thorough ablution in the public wash basin reduced the color, but left the skin very soft and smooth; in fact, as a lotion for the skin it is excellent. It is a soothing and healing application for poisonous bites already received.
I have given some space to the insect question, but no more than it deserves or requires. The venomous little wretches are quite important enough to spoil many a well planned trip to the woods and it is best to beat them from the start. You will find that immunity from insects and a comfortable camp are the two first and most indispensable requisites of an outing in the woods.
And just here I will briefly tell how a young friend of mine went to the woods, some twenty-five years ago. He was a bank clerk and a good fellow withal, with a leaning toward camp-life.
For months, whenever we met, he would introduce his favorite topics, fishing, camping out, etc. At last in the hottest of the hot months, the time came. He put in an appearance with a fighting cut on his hair, a little stiff straw hat and a soft skin, bleached by long confinement in a close office. I thought he looked a little tender; but he was sanguine. He could rough it, could sleep on the bare ground with the root of a tree for a pillow; as for mosquitoes and punkies, he never minded them.
We went in a party of five—two old hunters and three youngsters, the latter all enthusiasm and pluck—at first. Toward the last end of a heavy eight-mile tramp, they grew silent and slapped and scratched nervously. Arriving at the camping spot, they worked fairly well, but were evidently weakening a little. By the time we were ready to turn in they were reduced pretty well to silence and suffering—especially the bank clerk, Jean L. The punkies were eager for his tender skin and they were rank poison to him. He muffled his head in a blanket and tried to sleep, but it was only a partial success. When, by suffocating himself, he obtained a little relief from insect bites, there were stubs and knotty roots continually poking themselves among his ribs, or digging into his backbone.
I have often had occasion to observe that stubs, roots and small stones, etc., have a perverse tendency to abrade the anatomy of people unused to the woods. Mr. C.D. Warner has noticed the same thing, I believe.
On the whole, Jean and the other youngsters behaved very well. Although they turned out in the morning with red, swollen faces and half closed eyes, they all went trouting and caught about 150 small trout between them. They did their level bravest to make a jolly thing of it; but Jean's attempt to watch a deerlick resulted in a wetting through the sudden advent of a shower; and the shower drove about all the punkies and mosquitoes in the neighborhood under our roof for shelter. I never saw them more plentiful or worse. Jean gave in and varnished his pelt thoroughly with my "punkie dope," as he called it; but, too late: the mischief was done. And the second trial was worse to those youngsters than the first. More insects. More stubs and knots. Owing to these little annoyances, they arrived at home several days before their friends expected them—leaving enough rations in camp to last Old Sile and the writer a full week. And the moral of it is, if they had fitted themselves for the the woods before going there, the trip would have been a pleasure instead of a misery.
One other little annoyance I will mention, as a common occurrence among those who camp out; this is the lack of a pillow. I suppose I have camped fifty times with people, who, on turning in, were squirming around for a long time, trying to get a rest for the head. Boots are the most common resort. But, when you place a boot-leg—or two of them—under your head, they collapse and make a headrest less than half an inch thick. Just why it never occurs to people that a stuffing of moss, leaves, or hemlock browse, would fill out the boot-leg and make a passable pillow, is another conundrum I cannot answer. But there is another and better way of making a pillow for camp use, which I will describe further on.
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:
Firstly, the roof. This is merely a sheet of strong cotton cloth 9 feet long by 4 or 4 1/2 feet in width. The sides, of the same material, to be 4 1/2 feet deep at front and 2 feet deep at the back. This gives 7 feet along the edge of the roof, leaving 2 feet for turning down at the back end of the shanty. It will be seen that the sides must be "cut bias," to compensate for the angle of the roof, otherwise the shanty will not be square and shipshape when put up. Allowing for waste in cutting, it takes nearly 3 yards of cloth for each side. The only labor required in making, is to cut the sides to the proper shape and stitch them to the roof. No buttons, strings, or loops. The cloth does not even require hemming. It does, however, need a little waterproofing; for which the following receipt will answer very well and add little or nothing to the weight: To 10 quarts of water add 10 ounces of lime and 4 ounces of alum; let it stand until clear; fold the cloth snugly and put it in another vessel, pour the solution on it, let it soak for 12 hours; then rinse in luke-warm rain water, stretch and dry in the sun and the shanty-tent is ready for use.
To put it up properly, make a neat frame as follows: Two strong stakes or posts for the front, driven firmly in the ground 4 feet apart; at a distance of 6 feet 10 inches from these, drive two other posts—these to be 4 feet apart—for back end of shanty. The front posts to be 4 1/2 feet high, the back rests only two feet. The former also to incline a little toward each other above, so as to measure from outside of posts, just 4 feet at top. This gives a little more width at front end of shanty, adding space and warmth. No crotches are used in putting up the shanty-tent. Each of the four posts is fitted on the top to receive a flat-ended cross-pole and admit of nailing. When the posts are squarely ranged and driven, select two straight, hardwood rods, 2 inches in diameter and 7 feet in length—or a little more. Flatten the ends carefully and truly, lay them alongside on top from post to post and fasten them with a light nail at each end. Now, select two more straight rods of the same size, but a little over 4 feet in length; flatten the ends of these as you did the others, lay them crosswise from side to side and lapping the ends of the other rods; fasten them solidly by driving a sixpenny nail through the ends and into the posts and you have a square frame 7x4 feet. But it is not yet complete. Three light rods are needed for rafters. These are to be placed lengthwise of the roof at equal distances apart and nailed or tied to keep them in place. Then take two straight poles a little over 7 feet long and some 3 inches in diameter. These are to be accurately flattened at the ends and nailed to the bottom of the posts, snug to the ground, on outside of posts. A foot-log and head-log are indispensable. These should be about 5 inches in diameter and of a length to just reach from outside to outside of posts. They should be squared at ends and the foot-log placed against the front post, outside and held firmly in place by two wooden pins. The head-log is fastened the same way, except that it goes against the inside of the back posts; and the frame is complete. Round off all sharp angles or corners with knife and hatchet and proceed to spread and fasten the cloth. Lay the roof on evenly and tack it truly to the front cross-rod, using about a dozen six-ounce tacks. Stretch the cloth to its bearings and tack it at the back end in the same manner. Stretch it sidewise and tack the sides to the side poles, fore and aft. Tack front and back ends of sides to the front and back posts. Bring down the 2 foot flap of roof at back end of shanty; stretch and tack it snugly to the back posts—and your sylvan house is done. It is rain-proof, wind-proof, warm and comfortable. The foot and head logs define the limits of your forest dwelling; within which you may pile fragrant hemlock browse as thick as you please and renew it from day to day. It is the perfect camp.
You may put it up with less care and labor and make it do very well. But I have tried to explain how to do it in the best manner; to make it all sufficient for an entire season. And it takes longer to tell it on paper than to do it.
When I go to the woods with a partner and we arrive at our camping ground, I like him to get his fishing rig together and start out for a half day's exercise with his favorite flies, leaving me to make the camp according to my own notions of woodcraft. If he will come back about dusk with a few pounds of trout, I will have a pleasant camp and a bright fire for him. And if he has enjoyed wading an icy stream more than I have making the camp—he has had a good day.
Perhaps it may not be out of place to say that the camp, made as above, calls for fifteen bits of timber, posts, rods, etc., a few shingle nails and some sixpenny wrought nails, with a paper of six-ounce tacks. Nails and tacks will weigh about five ounces and are always useful. In tacking the cloth, turn the raw edge in until you have four thicknesses, as a single thickness is apt to tear. If you desire to strike camp, it takes about ten minutes to draw and save all the nails and tacks, fold the cloth smoothly and deposit the whole in your knapsack. If you wish to get up a shelter-tent on fifteen minutes' notice, cut and sharpen a twelve-foot pole as for the Indian camp, stick one end in the ground, the other in the rough bark of a large tree—hemlock is best—hang the cloth on the pole, fasten the sides to rods and the rods to the ground with inverted crotches, and your shelter-tent is ready for you to creep under.
The above description of the shanty-tent may seem a trifle elaborate, but I hope it is plain. The affair weighs just three pounds and it takes a skillful woodsman about three hours of easy work to put it in the shape described. Leaving out some of the work and only aiming to get it up in square shape as quickly as possible, I can put it up in an hour. The shanty as it should be, is shown in the illustration very fairly. And the shape of the cloth when spread out, is shown in the diagram. On the whole, it is the best form of close-side tent I have found. It admits of a bright fire in front, without which a forest camp is just no camp at all to me. I have suffered enough in close, dark, cheerless, damp tents.
More than thirty years ago I became disgusted with the clumsy, awkward, comfortless affairs that, under many different forms, went under the name of camps. Gradually I came to make a study of "camping out." It would take too much time and space, should I undertake to describe all the different styles and forms I have tried. But I will mention a few of the best and worst.
The old Down East "coal cabin" embodied the principle of the Indian camp. The frame was simply two strong crotches set firmly in the ground at a distance of eight feet apart and interlocking at top. These supported a stiff ridge-pole fifteen feet long, the small end sharpened and set in the ground. Refuse boards, shooks, stakes, etc., were placed thickly from the ridge-pole to the ground; a thick layer of straw was laid over these and the whole was covered a foot thick with earth and sods, well beaten down. A stone wall five feet high at back and sides made a most excellent fireplace; and these cabins were weather-proof and warm, even in zero weather. But they were too cumbersome and included too much labor for the ordinary hunter and angler. Also, they were open to the objection, that while wide enough in front, they ran down to a dismal, cold peak at the far end. Remembering, however, the many pleasant winter nights I had passed with the coal-burners, I bought a supply of oil-cloth and rigged it on the same principle. It was a partial success and I used it for one season. But that cold, peaked, dark space was always back of my head and it seemed like an iceberg. It was in vain that I tied a handkerchief about my head, or drew a stockingleg over it. That miserable, icy angle was always there. And it would only shelter one man anyhow. When winter drove me out of the woods I gave it to an enthusiastic young friend, bought some more oil-cloth and commenced a shanty-tent that was meant to be perfect. A good many leisure hours were spent in cutting and sewing that shanty, which proved rather a success. It afforded a perfect shelter for a space 7x4 feet, but was a trifle heavy to pack and the glazing began to crack and peel off in a short time. I made another and larger one of stout drilling, soaked in lime-water and alum; and this was all that could be asked when put up properly on a frame. But, the sides and ends being sewed to the roof made it unhandy to use as a shelter, when shelter was needed on short notice. So I ripped the back ends of the sides loose from the flap, leaving it, when spread out, as shown in the diagram. This was better; when it was necessary to make some sort of shelter in short order, it could be done with a single pole as used in the Indian camp, laying the tent across the pole and using a few tacks to keep it in place at sides and center. This can be done in ten minutes and makes a shelter-tent that will turn a heavy rain for hours.
On the whole, for all kinds of weather, the shanty-tent is perhaps the best style of camp to be had at equal expense and trouble.
For a summer camp, however, I have finally come to prefer the simple lean-to or shed roof. It is the lightest, simplest and cheapest of all cloth devices for camping out and I have found it sufficient for all weathers from June until the fall of the leaves. It is only a sheet of strong cotton cloth 9x7 feet and soaked in lime and alum-water as the other. The only labor in making it is sewing two breadths of sheeting together. It needs no hemming, binding, loops or buttons, but is to be stretched on a frame as described for the brush shanty and held in place with tacks. The one I have used for two seasons cost sixty cents and weighs 2 1/4 pounds. It makes a good shelter for a party of three; and if it be found a little too breezy for cool nights, a sufficient windbreak can be made by driving light stakes at the sides and weaving in a siding of hemlock boughs.
Lastly, whatever cloth structure you may elect to use for a camp, do not fail to cover the roof with a screen of green boughs before building your campfire. Because there will usually be one fellow in camp who has a penchant for feeding the fire with old mulchy deadwood and brush, for the fun of watching the blaze and the sparks that are prone to fly upward; forgetting that the blazing cinders are also prone to drop downward on the roof of the tent, burning holes in it.
I have spoken of some of the best camps I know. The worst ones are the A and wall tents, with all closed camps in which one is required to seclude himself through the hours of sleep in damp and darkness, utterly cut off from the cheerful, healthful light and warmth of the campfire.