Daniel Beard - Do It Yourself Bushcraft: A Book of the Big Outdoors

A BOOK OF THE

Copyright

Copyright 1925 by Beatrice Alice Beard

Reprinted with the permission of Albert L. Beard

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published in 1925 by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-81619-7

ISBN-10: 0-486-81619-2

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

816192012017

www.doverpublications.com

DEDICATED WITH ESTEEM AND AFFECTION

TO

DR. WILLIAM T. HORNADAY

NATURALIST, HUNTER, EXPLORER, AND FOUNDER OF THE CAMP-FIRE CLUB OF AMERICA, DIRECTOR ZOLOGICAL PARK, NEW YORK, AND LOYAL FRIEND

The simple things, the true things are not the products of urban life; they are foreign to the great white ways of the city, where art, science and crime have combined to make things wonderfully complex. There were no moon-faced, thick-waisted men among the George Rodger Clarks, Boones, Kentons and Crocketts. These wilderness men were tall, slender, lithe and athletic.

Robert Services Law of the Yukon, where he so dramatically and forcefully shows that only the strong shall thrive, has always been the law of the wilderness. But what Service has not shown, and what is equally true, is that the wilderness by its intensive training itself develops that very strength of character and strength of muscle necessary to survive. The Government of the United States was founded in the big outdoors, its front yard was the sands of the ocean, its back yard a howling wilderness.

The outdoor world has a way of its own of giving distinction to his devotees and all through the pages of history, from Christ himself to the present day, the outdoor man stands forth in bold relief. George Washington was a mighty hunter and a pioneer. Abraham Lincoln was a backwoodsman and a flatboatman, and Colonel Roosevelt was a conspicuous example of the outdoor man of to-day.

It seems to be absolutely necessary for the morality, the stability and the health of our nation, that our young people should have free access to the forest and field. A normal life is produced neither by the palace or the hovelit needs the hot rays of the sun, the pelting of the storm, the bivouac in the wilderness, the climbing of mountains, shooting the wrath of the rapids, in order to build up the muscles, the mind and the morals of a well-balanced manhood.

We must learn that education cannot be fenced in by the three Rs or limited by Latin and Greek. The early Americans, clothed in deerskin garments, were often highly educated but lived scarcely less crudely than their enemies, the Redmen; but they were happy, they possessed in the fullest extent life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness which Jefferson tersely summed as the stimulus which causes human exertion.

The bald-headed, the spectacle-eyed man is the product of the city or of the indoor life; he is paying the penalty of breaking the laws of Nature by the loss of some of the normal attributes of perfect manhood. The thick waist and the short breath of the city man is the direct result of his artificial life; the lithe, sinewy, slender figures of the early Americans was the direct result of their life in the open. The author has seen a fat, pampered city dog thrown into convulsions by a short, strenuous run, yet the gaunt, lean wolves of the wilderness will run all day without tiring, and the gaunt, lean Americans won out when opposed to the well-fed, thick-waisted foes.

Which leads up to the fact that the author wants to impress upon his reader and the public, that outdoor pursuits should no longer be classed as mere sports but recognized as vitally important parts of real education. The stifling walls of houses, the weakening influence of ease and luxury and the benumbing influence of abject poverty stunt, dwarf and atrophy manhood and the normal development of the five senses.

The big cities have no place for healthy, wholesome happiness and the youthful joy of life. The white light districts are only refined and luxurious editions of the red light districts; there exists no fundamental differences in the morals of either, and real happiness cannot exist without rugged virtue and vigorous morality.

It is the outdoor men like Abraham Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Boone and George Rodger Clark whose names stand high above the crowd in our own history; it is the William Tells, Robin Hoods and Robinson Crusoes who hold the permanent and prominent positions in folk-lore and romance. It is men like Fred Remington and Belmore Browne who distinguished themselves in art; it is men like Audubon and Thoreau who leave a lasting impression in the literature of the age. It is the Buffalo Bills and Kit Carsons that appeal strongest to our youth.

We all feel the effort of the inner-man to throw aside the artificialities which impede thought and action, and to seek fields of enterprise outside the counting-room, the dusty library and the sweat-shops of science and literature. Dont misunderstand, the author is a lover of old books and an advocate of higher education, but he does not believe the Lord created us to live the life of moles and other creatures which dread the sunlight.

The writer hopes that he is doing his little towards laying the foundation stone of the great university of the outdoor world, which must soon materialize in answer to the protests against the devitalizing, weakening vices generated by indoor life and imported by America from ancient and senile civilizations.

The health and happiness of our young people is absolutely necessary in order to produce normal men and women, so the happiness of our young people is the most important thing for the nation and society to develop. Youth is by nature an explorer, and an adventurer. From the time the babe begins to creep up to the time that the adult is chained to the treadmill of business or profession, youth is constantly seeking adventure, seeking fairyland, seeking discoveries. Youth is inspired by the same impulse which sent Columbus to America, Cook on his voyages around the world, Stanley to Central Africa, Perry to the North Pole, Scott and Shackleton to the South Pole. These aspirations should not be stifled, the young people must have access to the great outdoors.

DANIEL CARTER BEARD

FLUSHING, L. I., JUNE 3, 1925

I jes set here a-dreamin

A-dreamin every day,

Of the sunshine thats a-gleamin

On the rivers fur away.

So I nod an fall to wishin

I was where the waters swish,

Fer if the Lord made fishin

Whya feller ought ter fish.